Training Program in Substance Use and Use Disorders

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Drug abuse and addiction represent major health issues both in the United States and worldwide. In the United States alone costs related to loss of work, crime, and health care exceed $700 billion a year. The field of addiction spans numerous disciplines including, but not limited to, medicine, psychiatry, neurobiology, pharmacology, public health, and law, illustrating the impact that drugs of abuse and addiction have on the human condition. We are currently experiencing an amazing growth of technologies yielding new insights into the biological effects of drugs of abuse and mechanisms for the development of dependence and addiction. At UC Irvine, the community of faculty and researchers studying the neurobiology of addiction is rapidly growing with support from the UC Irvine Center for Addiction Neuroscience (ICAN), a new NIDA P50 Center of Excellence called the Impact of Cannabinoids Across Lifespan (ICAL), and a new center focused on the medical and legislative challenges of legalized marijuana (Center for the Study of Cannabis). The goal of the proposed Training Program in Substance Use and Use Disorders is to train the next generation of innovative researchers in the field of addiction neuroscience by leveraging the exceptional strength in neuroscience at UCI, and the new centers focused on addiction research, to provide an educational and research experience that will position trainees as new leaders in the field. The training program is focused on predoctoral students and will provide the following: 1) a modern and interdisciplinary neurobiology of addiction course; 2) two courses related to cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system that dovetail with the P50 ICAL research endeavors; 3) an annual addiction neuroscience symposium; 4) a training program annual retreat; 5) a scientific writing course; 6) a public speaking course provided by Activate to Captivate; 7) an addiction research seminar series; 8) a journal club; 9) instruction in methods for enhancing reproducibility; and 10) conference presentations. This will be the first training program on campus that is specifically focused on drugs of abuse and addiction. Together, the new centers focused on addiction bring together scientists and clinicians from over a dozen departments and four schools to address the grand challenges in this field, to train and educate the next generation of investigators and clinicians, and to disseminate important information to the public.