Stress, Drugs and Food: A Conversation between an Economist & Neuroscientists
This episode presents a dialogue involving economist Dr. Erdal Tekin, a member of AU’s Department of Public Administration and Policy, along with neuroscientists Terry Davidson and Tony Riley, and law professor Susan Carle discussing research and policy approaches to drug abuse, obesity and other potentially harmful brain-based behaviors. Dr. Erdal explains how economists think about addiction and other types of self-destructive behavior as a problem of “time inconsistency”—in other words, individuals sometimes don’t calculate the value of their future preferences sufficiently in deciding on their current actions. Davidson, Riley and Carle then discus bringing economics and neuroscience together in preventing and treating addiction and obesity and the need for more inter-disciplinary collaboration.
Guest Speaker
Professor Tekin is an economist with primary research interests in the fields of health economics and demographic economics. Within these fields, the main theme of his research is the economic analysis of risky behaviors and the
consequences of prenatal and postnatal conditions and risk factors on the short and long-term outcomes of individuals on a multitude of domains including health, human capital, labor market, and crime.
Dr. Tony Riley received his undergraduate training at the University of North Carolina and obtained his PhD from the University of Washington. He did a post-doctoral fellowship in pharmacology at Dalhousie University in Canada. He joined the faculty at American University in 1976. Dr. Riley is a member of a number of organizations, including Society for Neurosciences, Behavioral Pharmacology Society, College on the Problems of Drug Dependence, Behavioral Toxicology Society and the Society for the Stimulus Properties of Drugs and has been on the editorial board of a number of toxicology and neuroscience journals.