Neurobiology of Addiction connects the science of learning, stress, and executive control to decisions clinics make every day. We map the mesolimbic reward system, threat/salience circuits, and frontoparietal control networks—how drugs and behaviors hijack prediction, habit, and relief—and show where treatments press back. If you’re comparing tracks at a neurobiology of addiction conference, you’ll find a translation guide from mechanism to lever: contingency management to re-price rewards; CBT/MI to rewrite cues and expectancies; sleep/circadian repair to support plasticity; exercise and activation to restore natural reward; and medications that dampen craving or stabilize control. We emphasize development (adolescents’ heightened learning windows), trauma and stress biology (HPA axis, amygdala), and social context (isolation vs. belonging) because circuits don’t live in a vacuum. For imaging-informed applications, see Neuroimaging and Circuits.

Biology guides realism and hope. We show how repeated intoxication narrows attention and learning toward drug cues, why lapses are common during stress and sleep loss, and how practice—skills, routines, and values-based actions—reopens choice. Treatment is circuit training: cues are mapped and defused; alternative rewards are scheduled; social accountability and identity repair momentum; and medications or neuromodulation are layered when indicated. Equity matters: chronic stress from poverty, discrimination, and unsafe housing loads the same circuits we’re trying to heal; programs must include benefits navigation, housing links, and safer-use strategies. We connect bench to bedside without hype—what is robust enough for practice now, what is promising, and where access limits mean we use low-tech proxies. Outcomes that matter—retention, function, quality of life—become our scoreboard. When patients understand the “why,” motivation becomes less fragile and recovery more durable.