For Patients & Families > Specific Diseases > Substance Abuse & Addiction
Addiction Research at Farber
Substance abuse directly affects an estimated 22 million Americans and has wide-ranging
consequences for families, communities and society at large. Addiction carries an economic
price tag of more than $245 billion annually. Despite the recent availability of new
therapies, only a small proportion of people who need treatment actually get it.
Recent brain research at the Farber Institute for Neurosciences of Thomas Jefferson
University has contributed to growing evidence from around the world that drugs of abuse
cause long-term changes in the brain. For many users, these changes at some point turn
drug abuse into addiction, a chronic, relapsing brain disorder. Led by laboratory head Elisabeth Van Bockstaele, Ph.D., Farber scientists are now
applying these basic findings on addiction to the development of new therapies.
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