Zachary Alti wrote:

How a normally functioning brain is susceptible to addiction

The dopaminergic pathways of the brain and addiction

The developing adolescent brain and addiction

The adult brain and addiction

The similarities and differences between behavioral and substance addictions

What all this means in our day to day lives

Strategies for putting this knowledge to use

My name is Zachary Alti. I am a Manhattan based-psychotherapist specializing in addiction issues. I have developed a workshop on the Neurobiology of Addiction, which I will likely present to the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium in Washington D.C. this coming March. I would like to offer a gaming-addiction specific version of the workshop (based largely on the research of Mark Griffiths) to your group free of charge on Friday August 29th at 9pm EST via Skype.As a therapist who specializes in addiction issues, I have found that understanding the mechanisms behind addiction can help in the recovery process, along with the communal support and structure offered by 12-step programs. I refer many of my clients to 12-step programs for this very reason. When it comes to addiction, you may agree that every tool helps.I have done an extensive review of the literature on both behavioral and substance addiction (which can often be related). Though this science is only a few decades old at best, there are some interesting initial findings, which paint a clearer picture of what happens in our brain to cause addiction.The main themes of the workshop include: