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Our brain is a wonderful organ. It lets us think, learn, decide and survive. All of our actions are controlled by our brain, that’s why taking care of it, specially during its development until we reach the age of 21, is key for our mental health.

Besides, our brain works in order to guarantee our survival and detects substances and situations which are necessary to maintain our species. Eating, drinking, sex... These are situations the brain detects as essential for our survival. Drugs hack our brain and pretend to be essential for our survival. In addition, they change the functions of the brain so that they become the most important thing for the individual, although their consequences are extremely negative.

How drugs work and transform our brain are issues that are still being researched and which we will reveal in this lecture.

Brief CV

PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Valencia, she is a full professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy. Her research activity focuses on the field of neuropharmacology of addiction, on understanding the effect of alcohol on the brain and the risk factors for suffering from alcoholism, with the aim of finding new therapies for this addiction. She has published numerous scientific articles in impact journals and has worked in several laboratories at prestigious universities such as the University of Cambridge (UK) and Columbia University (USA), where she has studied addiction and pain. As a result of her research, she has received awards from the European Society for Research in Alcoholism (ESBRA), the Valencian Foundation for Pain Studies (FUNDOLOR) and the Talent Young Researcher awarded by Bankia and Levante-EMV. She is currently carrying out her research at the Doreal Laboratory of the University of Valencia, where she studies, among others, pain as a risk factor in alcoholism and anxiety-type psychological disorders, especially in females. 

More information

• Doreal Laboratory
• Neurociencia de las adicciones: una nueva perspectiva
• Researchers discover a key mechanism of chronic infalmmatory pain that could reduce drug doses
• Researcher Lucía Hipólito collaborates in a study to block the emotional component of pain
• The Fallas show the Valencian research in Neuroscience
• Shown taht chronic infalmmatory pain promotes drug abuse and relapse to drug use
• ¿Por qué soy científica?
• Nuestro aislamiento de hoy, ¿nuestro alcoholismo de mañana?
• Nuevas maneras de entender enfermedades como el alzhéimer y la esclerosis múltiple: glía, más que un “pegamento”

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Stimulating scientific vocations is a project of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit of the University of Valencia, that has co-funding from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Science and Innovation.