Stimulating the brain – FuturiZe thought leader round table

This session will include interventions from different areas of neuroscience and neuro-modelling with two-way objectives: studying the brain to learn more about addictions and addictions to elucidate aspects of brain function, both with clinical and preventive implications.

We will start by reviewing the neurobiological advances from the brain disease model of addictions, focusing not only on the opportunities related to the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders and addictive behaviours (gambling, food, sex), but also on the potential contribution of the neuroscience research in addictions to shed light on how the brain works and better understand the biologic processed involved in voluntary control of behaviour. Next, we will introduce alternative or adjunctive treatment approaches that may help patients to improve the control of their drug use beyond abstinence. Evidence based pharmacological and biopsychosocial therapies are available to treat most substance use disorders, but these approaches mainly target abstinence and have shown moderately effective for craving and relapse. In the search for new treatment approaches, non-invasive neuromodulation has gained attention: these techniques may be able to rebalance the disturbed neurobiological processes that underlie craving and subsequent relapse and improve executive functions. In this session, we will feature recent and emerging evidence to show how non-invasive brain stimulation techniques and neurofeedback training interventions may be useful to control craving and for the treatment of addictive substance use (e.g. cocaine and alcohol).