Dr. McKay’s lecture “The Brain on Drugs” will take the audience on a journey from brain chemicals to brain cells to brain circuits to the complexities of human behaviour when humans are “doing drugs” (both recreational and therapeutic). The lecture will address such questions as:

1. “How do drugs affect the brain?” (here we will consider: What is a drug? How do chemicals often made by (or modified from) plants, fungi, etc., act as “drugs” in the human brain? How do drugs change the brain immediately during first-time use, and change the brain over the long-term after repeated use? Why do drugs produce tolerance and withdrawal and addiction?),
2. “What happens to the brain and to behaviour when alcohol or drug use begins in early adolescence?” (in this part of the presentation I will address: When and why does drug use begin? Why are the negative short-term and long-term effects of drugs – on the brain, on behaviour, and on success later in life – so much more pronounced when alcohol and drug use begins in the early teenage years compared to the late teenage years? What kinds of tools and instruments does modern neuroscience use to study the brains of adolescent humans and animals on drugs?), and finally
3. “How do we prevent or minimize drug use by adolescents?”