הרצאת המכון ללימודים מתקדמים: כיצד התמכרות משנה את מנגנוני השליטה העצמית במוח?
מרצה אורחת: פרופ' ריטה גולדשטיין, פרופסור לנוירו־הדמיה של התמכרות, המחלקות לפסיכיאטריה ולמדעי המוח, בית הספר לרפואה איקאהן במאונט סיני, ניו יורק, ארה"ב
HOW DOES ADDICTION ALTER SELF-CONTROL IN THE HUMAN BRAIN?
As part of her visit to the Institute for Advanced Studies as an IAS Distinguished Scholar, Prof. Rita Z. Goldstein will deliver a lecture titled “From Salience to Self-Control: Prefrontal Cortex Mechanisms, Naturalistic Measures, and Treatment-Induced Plasticity in Human Drug Addiction.”
This lecture explores how addiction disrupts self-control, reward processing, and decision making in the human brain. Drawing on multimodal neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and naturalistic behavioral methods, Prof. Goldstein examines the neural mechanisms underlying craving and compulsive drug seeking, while also highlighting emerging approaches to recovery, neuroplasticity, and treatment.
COURSE DETAILS
When: Monday, 18 May 2026, 12:15–13:45
Where: Room 214, Sharett Building
Light refreshments will be served before the lecture.
The lecture will be conducted in English and is open to the public.
MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Prof. Rita Z. Goldstein is Mount Sinai Professor in Neuroimaging of Addiction at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. An internationally recognized leader in addiction neuroscience, she is best known for developing the iRISA (Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution) model, which integrates brain imaging, cognition, and behavior to understand impaired self-regulation in addiction.
Her research combines neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and behavioral science to investigate the neural mechanisms of craving, compulsive drug use, and recovery, with the broader aim of advancing translational biomarkers and treatment strategies for addiction.
FULL ABSTRACT
FROM SALIENCE TO SELF-CONTROL: PREFRONTAL CORTEX MECHANISMS, NATURALISTIC MEASURES, AND TREATMENT-INDUCED PLASTICITY IN HUMAN DRUG ADDICTION
Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder marked by compulsive drug use despite severe personal consequences and diminishing hedonic effects. In the iRISA (Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution) model, we proposed that addiction is driven by a core imbalance: excessive motivational salience assigned to drugs and drug-related cues, coupled with compromised inhibitory control and self-regulation. These deficits implicate dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex within the broader dopaminergic mesocorticolimbic circuitry.
In this talk, I will present findings from multimodal human neuroimaging studies that integrate neuropsychological assessment, functional and structural MRI, and event-related potentials across multiple substances of abuse, including cocaine and heroin. These studies probe key dimensions of addiction, namely drug cue reactivity, reward processing, and inhibitory control, and link prefrontal dysfunction to clinically meaningful phenomena such as craving and compulsive drug seeking.
I will then discuss evidence for brain and behavioral plasticity with abstinence and with active intervention, including pharmacological approaches such as methylphenidate, behavioral strategies such as cognitive reappraisal and memory reconsolidation, mindfulness-based interventions, and direct neuromodulation techniques including transcranial direct current stimulation and neurofeedback.
Finally, I will introduce emerging work using naturalistic paradigms, including movie viewing and spontaneous speech analyzed with AI/ML-based language methods, to identify ecologically valid brain-behavior markers and predictors of treatment response and recovery trajectories. Together, these findings show how integrating neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and naturalistic measures can advance mechanistic understanding of human drug addiction and help inform empirically grounded neurorehabilitation strategies.
The Institute of Advanced Studies
https://ias.tau.ac.il
