IBRO-UM5 Advanced School on Translational Neuroscience of Drug Addiction

This two-week course begins with basic neuroscience of addiction, including lab techniques. It progresses to biologically based addiction clinical trials and treatment programs, with a focus on the needs of Africa.

Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing disease that extracts a huge sociological, medical, and personal cost across Africa. This two-week course on the basic and clinical neuroscience of drug addiction will provide the student with exposure to the latest knowledge about how the brain controls motivated behaviors, the pathologies produced by addictive drugs and the latest clinical approaches to treating drug addiction. The course will be taught by basic and clinical research leaders in the field of drug addiction from Africa, North America and Europe. The first week is devoted to basic research and will provide a deep dive into the brain circuits and synaptic plasticity that underly drug addiction. In addition to lectures, there will be laboratory sessions teaching modern research techniques that can be readily applied to study drug addiction in poorly resourced research environments. The second week is devoted to clinical research and the latest treatments for drug addiction, with a focus on issues especially pertinent to drug addiction in Africa.