Marc Lewis

Marc Lewis, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist and professor of developmental psychology, recently at the University of Toronto, where he taught and conducted research from 1989 to 2010, and presently at Radboud University in the Netherlands. He is the author or co-author of over 50 journal publications in psychology and neuroscience. Marc experimented with a large variety of drugs in his youth, eventually becoming addicted to opiates. His addiction cost him several close relationships and led him into crime. He finally got arrested and convicted for theft, and he was kicked out of graduate school as a result. At the age of 30 Marc quit drugs for good, then reentered grad school and received his Ph.D. five years later. Around 2006, Marc's research led him back to addiction, this time as a neuroscientist studying the brain changes that amplify craving and weaken self-control. His recent book, Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, blends his life story with a user-friendly account of how drugs affect the brain and how addiction seriously alters neural chemistry and structure.