A/Prof Nicole Lee is one of Australia’s leaders in drug treatment. She is particularly known for her work in methamphetamine treatment and treatment of co-occurring mental health and drug problems.

She is a translational scientist drawing on broad research to improve treatment outcomes.

Nicole is National President of the AACBT as well as Director of The LeeJenn Group, Associate Professor at the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction and Adjunct Associate Professor at the National Drug Research Institute.

How Drugs Affect the Brain

Drugs affect the brain – that’s why people use them! But both short term and long term users can experience significant brain changes that affect cognition, mental health symptoms and their ability to engage in treatment.

Some of these changes can last 12-18 months post abstinence and relapse rates are between 50% and 80% as a result.

Nicole uses examples from methamphetamine (‘speed’ and ‘ice’) and other drug use, and gives us the non-neuroscientist version of how drugs affect the brain in the long and short term, how that translates to the way users present in treatment and changes that we need to make to ensure treatment is more effective for this group.

When Wednesday 9 December 2015, (registration from 6:30pm) 7:00 to 8:00pm

Venue Bat and Ball, 495 Cleveland Street, Redefine

To download the flyer, go to: http://www.atoda.org.au/wp-content/uploads/AACBT-Pub-Discussion-Nicole-Lee1.pdf