As we enter the third decade of the 21st Century major advances in the fast-growing field of mental health have been exceptional. Frontiers have organized a series of Research Topics to highlight the latest advances in mental health research.

The Neuroscience portfolio at Frontiers is launching Research Topics to promote international scientific awareness of mental health disorders. Over the past few decades, major progress has been made toward addressing inequalities for people with mental health Disorders, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic with disproportionate increases in loneliness, disruptions to routines, and services and support systems.

This Research Topic article collection will focus on neuroscience research that can inform solutions for creating a culture of awareness, understanding, and solidarity, with this Topic focusing on the progress and challenges still faced in understanding the Behavioural Neuroscience of addiction.

The Research Topic solicits brief, forward-looking contributions from researchers around the globe that describe the state of the art, outline recent developments and major accomplishments that have been achieved and what needs to occur to move the field forward. Authors are encouraged to identify the greatest challenges in their sub-disciplines, and to formulate how to begin to address those challenges.

This special edition Research Topic aims to shed light on the progress made in the past decade in the field of Behavioural Neuroscience and Addiction and on the challenges ahead while providing a thorough overview of the state of the art in Behavioural Neuroscience. This article collection is intended to inspire, inform and provide direction and guidance to researchers in the field.

This topic focuses on, but is not limited to studies:-

• How escalation in drug intake affects the dysregulation of brain reward pathways.
• Hormonal studies assessing long term binge intake models and escalation self-administration models of drug intake
• Mechanisms behind increases in ACTH and corticosterone during an acute drug intake
• Examining attenuation during chronic drug intake stages
• Mechanisms behind the reactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during acute withdrawal.
• Models explaining the reasoning behind dependency on feed-forward activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system.
• Studies assessing the escalation in drug intake and why it produces an activation of the brain stress system’s corticotropin-releasing factor in the extended amygdala,
• The reasons for the difference in the brain’s stress system activation during acute withdrawal.
• Models of the role of different levels of hormonal/brain stress activators associated with addiction and caused by drug use
• Understanding individual vulnerability to drug dependence and novel treatments for the disorder.

Submit your idea

Impact

Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience

Impact