Over the past decade, many studies have indicated that adolescence is a critical period of
brain development and maturation. The refinement and maturation of the central nervous …

Substance use (eg, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, cocaine., etc,) use often initiates during
adolescence, a critical period of physiological and social development marked by an …

Stress is a major influence on mental health status; the ways that individuals respond to or
copes with stressors determine whether they are negatively affected in the future. Stress …

Addiction to psychostimulants like cocaine, methamphetamine, and nicotine poses a
continuing medical and social challenge both in the United States and all over the world …

Dopamine (DA) signaling is critical to the modulation of multiple brain functions including
locomotion, reinforcement, attention and cognition. The literature provides strong evidence …

Pavlovian learning processes can render cues and contexts associated with drug-taking
experiences into powerful motivators, such that exposure to such stimuli can elicit drug …

Several recent research findings indicate that schizophrenia (SCZ) may begin with an
abnormal neuro-genesis from embryonic Neural Stem Cells (NSCs) and that this process …

After discovering that addictive drugs alter adult neurogenesis, the potential role of adult-
born hippocampal neurons in drug addiction has become a promising research field, in …

Adolescent drug use reliably predicts increased addiction liability in adulthood, but not all
individuals are equally impacted. To explore the biological bases of this differential reactivity …

Pavlovian learning processes can render cues and contexts associated with drug-taking
experiences into powerful motivators, such that exposure to such stimuli can elicit drug …