Part of the Oxford Psychiatry Library series, this pocketbook is a clear and comprehensive overview of the brain science underpinning addiction and how this helps explain the current and future therapeutics for the range of addictions, using full colour images to enhance understanding. Substance Abuse focuses on the nature of addiction as a brain disorder that includes a range of different behavioural traits such as impulsivity and reward dependence, and discusses the critical role of kinetic and pharmacological factors. The text explains how the primary pharmacological targets of drugs of abuse are now understood, the relation to the variable nature of addiction to different substances, and how this may lead to new approaches to treatment.