University of Cambridge

Dr David Belin, Department of Psychology, discusses our current understanding of the psychological and neural basis of impulsive/compulsive disorders such as drug addiction and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). He will offer an overall framework within which to understand how goal-directed behaviour, initially aiming at experiencing euphoria, pleasure, or performing better at the exam, in the context or drug use, or relieving distress in the context of OCD becomes, in some vulnerable individuals, a compulsive habit.

Dr David Belin is a Lecturer in Behavioural Neuroscience at the Department of Psychology of the University of Cambridge.

Dr Belin was born in Blois, France. He graduated in 2005 in Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology at the University of Bordeaux 2. During his PhD he developed the first preclinical model of cocaine addiction based in the operationalisation of multiple clinical criteria of the pathology as defined in humans.

Dr Belin then moved to the laboratory of Professor Barry Everitt at the Department of Experimental Psychology of the University of Cambridge in January 2006. With his mentor Dr Belin investigated the corticostriatal mechanisms of cocaine seeking habits and the relationships between impulsivity and compulsive cocaine self-administration, leading to a breakthrough in our understanding of the neurological and psychological mechanisms subserving individual vulnerability to cocaine addiction.

In 2009 Dr David Belin tenured at the INSERM in France and established his INSERM team in Poitiers (France) which focused on the psychological, neural and cellular mechanisms of individual vulnerability to compulsive disorders and their modulation by the environment. Soon it became apparent that Cambridge is where he wanted to carry out his research and he came back in October 2013, being appointed Lecturer in Neuroscience at the Department of Pharmacology. He moved back to the Department of Psychology in October 2016, where he has now established his research on the psychological and neural mechanisms of compulsive disorders.

Dr David Belin has received the Mémain-Pelletier Award from the French Academy of Science and the Young Investigator Award from the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society. He received a visiting scientist award from the Chinese Academy of Science in December 2017.

Meet the new Course Director of the Faraday Institute. Eleanor Puttock talks with Prof.Hugh Rollinson about his interests, scientific career and future with the Faraday.

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