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Addiction hijacks the brain’s reward system, which normally encourages individuals to engage in survival-related activities such as socializing, eating, or achieving goals. Substances or specific behavioral activities create an intense “high” by flooding the reward system with dopamine, a chemical commonly known as “a feel-good chemical".
Even though Jeff’s view of addiction took a dramatic turn before 2016 and left him with a better understanding of how the disorder hijacks the brain, the reality laid bare by the prosecutor left ...
“The brain changes, and it doesn’t recover when you just stop the drug because the brain has been actually changed,” Kreek explained. “The brain may get OK with time in some persons. But it’s hard to find a person who has completely normal brain function after a long cycle of opiate addiction, not without specific medication treatment.”
The hijack model of substance addiction explains that drugs that elicit positive emotion mediate incentive motivation in the nucleus accumbens of the brain. Put another way, addictive substances act on ancient and evolutionarily conserved neural mechanisms associated with positive emotions that evolved to mediate incentive behavior.
Neuroscientists believe that drug addicts’ behavior is a direct correlation to some physiological change in their brain, caused by using drugs. This view believes there is a bodily function in the brain causing the addiction. This is brought on by a change in the brain caused by brain damage or adaptation from chronic drug use. [1] [2]
In a bright, white auditorium on the rolling campus of a rehab center on the East Coast, I learned that addiction is a disease. The giant room was filled with addicts and alcoholics, including my ...
If internet addiction is what caused the disruption in participants’ brain signaling, the reason why may have to do with neural pathways related to addiction, said Dr. Smita Das, an addiction ...
Addiction treatment must also help the individual maintain a drug-free lifestyle, and achieve productive functioning in the family, at work, and in society. Addiction is a disease which alters the structure and function of the brain. The brain circuitry may take months or years to recover after the addict has recovered. [42]