Essentials: Understanding & Treating Addiction | Dr. Anna Lembke

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In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, my guest is Dr. Anna Lembke, MD, Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine.

We discuss how dopamine drives reward, motivation and addictive behaviors. Dr. Lembke explains the concept of the pleasure-pain balance of dopamine and how this cycle plays a key role in the development and persistence of addiction. We also discuss some of the challenges of addiction recovery, including withdrawal, relapses and the potential benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy.

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  • 00:00:00 Anna Lembke
  • 00:00:15 Dopamine, Reward & Movement
  • 00:01:54 Baseline Dopamine; Genetics, Temperament & Addiction
  • 00:05:24 Addiction, Modern Life & Boredom
  • 00:07:18 Pleasure-Pain Balance, Dopamine, Addiction
  • 00:12:39 Resetting Dopamine, Substance or Behavior Recovery, Tool: 30-Day Abstinence
  • 00:14:26 Relapse, Addiction, Reflexive Behavior, Empathy
  • 00:18:39 Triggers, Relapse, Dopamine
  • 00:21:37 Shame, Truth Telling & Recovery
  • 00:23:58 Addiction, Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, Psilocybin, MDMA
  • 00:29:01 Social Media & Addiction, Tool: Intentionality

This transcript is currently under human review and may contain errors. The fully reviewed version will be posted as soon as it is available.

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Huberman Lab Essentials

Dr. Anna Lembke: Understanding & Treating Addiction

Huberman Lab Essentials are short episodes focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past full-length Huberman Lab episodes.

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