Criminology and Psychology

  “The better we understand our decision-making brain circuitry, the better we can target treatment, whether it’s pharmaceutical, behavioral, or deep brain stimulation,” says Jonathan Wallis, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at University of California, Berkeley. Wallis says he was inspired to study the brain mechanism behind substance abuse after observing the lengths to which an addict will go to fulfill a craving, despite knowing the downside of a habit. He wanted to know what the drug did to the brain that made it so difficult to not make the right choice and what prevented the addict from making a healthier one. Straight from the Source Read the original study DOI: 10.1038/nn.2961 In the new study, published in Nature Neuroscience, Wallis targeted the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex—two areas in the frontal brain—because previous research has shown that patients with damage to these areas of the brain are impai...