"Drug
Abuse: The Drive Within" -- Emory Great Teachers Lecture Series February
21, Emory Conference Center Hotel, 1615 Clifton Road
Michael J. Kuhar, Ph.D.
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pharmacology, Emory School of
Medicine Chief of Neuroscience, Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar
Over the past
25 years, scientists have achieved significant progress in understanding
the process of drug addiction. As Emory neuroscientist Michael J. Kuhar,
Ph.D., explains, it has become clear that continued use of drugs causes
a changed and disordered brain. These changes are long lasting, and
help us understand that drug addiction is a mental disease or disorder
with a physiological basis that can be treated.
As part of Emory's Great
Teachers Lecture Series, Dr. Kuhar will discuss the physiological basis
of drug addiction and the research advances that are bringing us closer
to effective medical treatment for this problem. The lecture will take
place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 21, at the Emory Conference
Center Hotel, located at 1615 Clifton Road. It is free, open to the
public, and does not require reservations. Call 404-727-6000 for further
information.
One of the world's leading
neuroscientists in the study of addiction, Dr. Kuhar is Charles Howard
Candler Professor of Pharmacology at the Emory University School of
Medicine and Chief of the Division of\ Neuroscience at the Yerkes Regional
Primate Research Center of Emory University. He also is a Georgia Research
Alliance Eminent Scholar, and has received numerous awards and accolades.
Dr. Kuhar's research focuses on the biochemical and physiological mechanisms
of drug abuse and the development of novel medications to treat addiction,
specifically cocaine addiction, for which no medication exists.
Dr. Kuhar and his colleagues
discovered the exact mechanism by which cocaine disrupts the brain's
levels of dopamine, a chemical that helps brain cells communicate. This
important finding directed scientists to focus on restoring normal dopamine
system function in drug abusers. Before joining Emory, Dr. Kuhar was
Chief of the Neurosciences Branch of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse's Addiction Research Center in Maryland and Professor of Neurosciences,
Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology at Johns Hopkins University. He earned
his B.S. in physics and philosophy at the University of Scranton in
1965 and his Ph.D. in biophysics and pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University
in1970.
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