From bedside to bench and back again: a 30-year saga.

My work (Mark S. Gold) began in the 70s looking for the mechanisms of drug reinforcement and withdrawal. Through observation and experience, drugs of abuse and the drive for food appeared to be quite related. As pioneered by Bart Hoebel, food can become an object of desire and act in most respects as a drug of abuse. The Gold lab is investigating working models for pathological attachment to eating and food addiction. New pharmacological treatments which interfere with food reinforcement may be the next step.