Motivational processes underlie behaviors that enrich the human experience, and
impairments in motivation are commonly observed in psychiatric illness. While motivated …

Advances in neuroscience identified addiction as a chronic brain disease with strong
genetic, neurodevelopmental, and sociocultural components. We here discuss the circuit …

Nicotine is the principal addictive component that drives continued tobacco use despite
users' knowledge of the harmful consequences. The initiation of addiction involves the …

Tobacco smoking among patients with psychiatric disease is more common than in the
general population, due to complex neurobiological, psychological, and …

The endogenous opioid system is expressed throughout the brain reinforcement circuitry,
and plays a major role in reward processing, mood control and the development of …

Opioid system dysregulation has been observed in both genetic and high-fat diet (HFD)-
induced models of obesity. An understanding of the molecular mechanisms of MOR …

Maternal consumption of a high fat diet during pregnancy increases the offspring risk for
obesity. Using a mouse model, we have previously shown that maternal consumption of a …

Tobacco use is strongly associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders. Smokers are more
likely than non-smokers to meet current criteria for mental health conditions, such as mood …

Nicotine addiction is a major public health problem, resulting in primary glutamatergic
dysfunction. We measured the glutamate receptor binding in the human brain and provided …

Although it is more common for drug abuse to progress from tobacco to cannabis, in many
cases cannabis use develops before tobacco use. Epidemiological evidence indicates that …