Why do people choose to use drugs even when they’re fully aware of the negative consequences? A University of Iowa neuroscientist received funding to determine what happens in the brain when people make that decision.

Ryan LaLumiere, professor and Ronnie Ketchel Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, will study the brain activity that occurs when an individual weighs the drug’s effects against the knowledge that using drugs could have negative consequences. He will specifically look at neural circuits — the message-carrying pathways in the brain — associated with substance use.

“How does the brain weigh those competing thoughts or desires? What are the neural mechanisms that push a person or an animal to engage in that action or to refrain from doing so?” LaLumiere asks.

By understanding how the brain acts during substance use decisions, LaLumiere hopes to uncover new approaches to help people with substance use disorder resist addictive urges. That could pave the way for more effective interventions for a range of addictions, from cocaine — which has no government-approved medications for treatment — to opioids.

“When we have better understanding of neural circuits and systems, then that could guide us to where to target treatment, such as perhaps specific pathways or regions in the brain that could help people resist that craving that can lead to substance abuse,” LaLumiere says.

LaLumiere will focus his research initially on rats, specifically the insular cortex region, which is responsible for weighing decisions and is believed to play a key role in drug addiction. Previous research at Iowa found that people with a damaged insular cortex lost their craving for nicotine.

“We think that area of the brain is biased toward reward or resisting a reward, and our experiments will determine whether that’s correct,” LaLumiere says.

LaLumiere, who is also director of graduate studies in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, has been studying the connections in the brain with drug addiction since he arrived at Iowa in 2010. In previous research, he found that the region of the brain that controls addictive behavior could, in theory, be reprogrammed to ease the urge to use drugs.

“We're laying that groundwork for understanding the brain and drug addiction, so that down the road, we can translate that into a clinical setting to help those with substance use disorders,” he says.

The $3 million award from the National Institutes of Health is for five years.