Do you like to socialize ?

Kurzbeschreibung des Forschungsprojekts

When you go to a party with friends who consume drugs of abuse, you would likely feel a pressure to try that too! and if you are surrounded by friends that do not like to experience drugs, you would likely be protected from drugs of abuse effects. Therefore, the environment (together with genetic factors) surrounding you can put you in a risk or...not to drugs effects. But wait...Can we know what happens inside the brain when someone takes repeatedly drugs ?

Well, we are here to answer this question and not only that, but also how this positive social interaction with "clean" friends can protect against drugs of abuse effects.

When taken repeatedly, drugs of abuse affect the circuits in the brain normally used to feel natural pleasure like eating a nice meal or having a sexual relation. However, drugs affect those circuits abnormally and change how they work leading us to always ask for more in order to feel the same pleasure.

How positive social interaction protects against drugs of abuse? what does it do in the brain to counteract drugs effects? these are the main subjects we focus on.

In addition, not all individuals like to socialize! Therefore, to promote to positive effects of social interaction, we need to know how to make those individuals that are not social enjoy the presence of a social partner. Let's discover together if we can and how we switch a non-social individual to a social one in order to help him overcome the challenges he might encounter not only in drug addiction but also in many other psychiatric disorders.