Directed by Thomas Brown, PhD, and Christina Gianoulakis, PhD, the laboratory is researching the genetic etiology and underlying mechanisms of addiction as well as the markers of predisposition to addiction. Since the early 1990s, researchers have studied:

• The biological markers for predisposition to addiction, including the reactivity of the opiatergic system to alcohol
• Psychological and pharmacological treatments, tested on humans and animals
• The influence of alcohol and stress, alone or in combination, on the human hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and pituitary beta-endorphin system, in relation to family history of alcoholism and according to sex
• The role of psychoactive substance abuse in high-risk behaviours, particularly with regard to impaired driving