Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on DrugsMarc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, deception, and crime. But unlike most addicts, Lewis recovered and became a developmental psychologist and researcher in neuroscience. In Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, he applies his professional expertise to a study of his former self, using the story of his own journey through addiction to tell the universal story of addictions of every kind. He explains the neurological effects of a variety of powerful drugs, and shows how they speak to the brain -- itself designed to seek rewards and soothe pain -- in its own language. And he illuminates how craving overtakes the nervous system, sculpting a synaptic network dedicated to one goal -- more -- at the expense of everything else. |
Contents
GIVING UP CONTROL | |
INTO THE FIRE | |
A ROMANTIC INTERLUDE | |
PART TWO LIFE AND DEATH IN CALIFORNIA | |
PULLING OUT THE STOPS | |
PART THREE GOING PLACES | |
TRAVEL BROADENS THE MIND | |
CONSCIOUSNESS LOST AND FOUND | |
THE OPIUM FIELDS | |
PART FOUR IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH | |
NIGHT LIFE IN RAT PARK | |
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT | |
HEALING | |
PSYCHEDELICS SEX AND VIOLENCE | |
COPS AND ANGELS | |
HEROIN THE HEAP AND THE SLEEP OF THE DEAD | |
GETTING DOWN | |
EPILOGUE | |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | |
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Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on Drugs Marc Lewis No preview available - 2012 |
Common terms and phrases
acid addiction Ah-Kin amygdala anterior cingulate cortex anxiety began Berkeley bottle brain breathing cannabinoids colour Connie consciousness cops craving dACC dark depression dextromethorphan door dopamine dream drugs emotional excitement eyes face fear feel felt finally friends front gaze getting glutamate Heap heroin hypothalamus images imagined inside Jimmy ketamine knew learning limbic system Lisa living looked meaning methamphetamine molecules months neural neuromodulator neurons never night nitrous oxide NMDA receptors norepinephrine okay opiate opioids orbitofrontal cortex parents prefrontal cortex psychology pulled Ralph reality Schwartz seemed sense serotonin shame Sharon sitar sitting sleep smile smoke somewhere sound started stop street sure Susan synapses Tabor talk Tennant there’s things Thomas thought told Toronto tried Trish trying turned ventral striatum voice waiting walked wasn’t weeks