A core concept emerging from scientific advances over the past decade is that dependence or addiction is fundamentally a chronic relapsing brain condition that develops over time as a result of a combination of pre-morbid vulnerabilities and chronic use of psychoactive substances.

The consequence to some is an uncontrollable, compulsive-like dysfunctional behaviour that will severely impact on the individual’s day-to-day existence within one’s own immediate family and surrounding community. Understanding resilience is not to eliminate stress or erase life’s difficulties. Instead, it gives people the strength to tackle problems, overcome adversity and move on with their lives.

Addiction medicine research is a cross cutting speciality that involves the acquisition of skills to undertake biological (e.g neurocognitive and other domains of behavioural and imaging related neuroscience), clinical (e.g. cardiovascular, infections, respiratory pathologies and other multiple morbidities), behavioural (e.g. fatal and non fatal overdose, injecting, codependencies, criminal activities) social (e.g. homelessness) and policy (e.g. global health) related activities.

This will create opportunities to utilise innovative and traditional methodologies to help understand mechanisms better and ultimately improve the outcomes, compliance, predictions and quality of life of the dependent populations. This might include the use of informatics through linked datasets, clinical trials, qualitative, quantitative and anthropological research processes, profiling through epidemiological and clinical studies, predictions through machine learning, among many others.

Principal Investigators