UC San Diego is offering two podcasted courses on addiction with Professor George Koob. Koob is Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute and has been doing research on addictions for over 40 years. He is also the author of the book Neurobiology of Addiction with his colleague Michel Le Moal.
In his course "Drugs, Addiction, & Mental Disorder", Koob covers legal and illegal drugs as well as prescription and non-prescription drugs and the addiction potential of various drugs. He looks at the ways certain drugs affect the brain including lectures on opiods, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, caffeine, LSD, steroids, and many drugs used for the treatment of mental illness. In the course he also provides info on the treatments available for addictions to these drugs.