The Vulnerable Brain

Why do we get hooked on things we know aren't good for us? And why is it so hard to stop?

From our phones and feeds to the habits and behaviours we struggle to control, we live in a world designed to keep us coming back for more. The environments we have built exploit the brain’s ancient systems of reward and desire, shaping what we want and pursue. We are all vulnerable to their pull.

In The Vulnerable Brain, Dr Rayyan Zafar draws on neuroscience, his own personal story and his pioneering work in psychedelic research to offer a radical new understanding of addiction as one of the defining public health challenges of our time. He tells the story of how our brains are shaped, how their ancient systems of desire can be hijacked and how, under the right conditions, they can reshape themselves.

Zafar takes us to the frontier of a new and hopeful era in our understanding and treatment of addiction, revealing how we might reclaim our attention, our agency and our capacity to want – without being controlled by what we desire.