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The common biomolecular mechanisms underlying addiction – CREB and ΔFosB – were reviewed by Eric J. Nestler in a 2013 review. [3] Genetics and mental disorders may precipitate the severity of a drug addiction. It is estimated that 50% of healthy individuals developing an addiction can trace the cause to genetic factors. [4]
Chemistry, not moral failing, accounts for the brain’s unwinding. In the laboratories that study drug addiction, researchers have found that the brain becomes conditioned by the repeated dopamine rush caused by heroin. “The brain is not designed to handle it,” said Dr. Ruben Baler, a scientist with the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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]
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".
Alcohol-related brain damage [1] [2] alters both the structure and function of the brain as a result of the direct neurotoxic effects of alcohol intoxication or acute alcohol withdrawal. Increased alcohol intake is associated with damage to brain regions including the frontal lobe , [ 3 ] limbic system , and cerebellum , [ 4 ] with widespread ...
One form of behavioral neuropharmacology focuses on the study of drug dependence and how drug addiction affects the human mind. Most research has shown that the major part of the brain that reinforces addiction through neurochemical reward is the nucleus accumbens. The image to the right shows how dopamine is projected into this area.
“We think that GLP-1s are likely affecting this pleasure and reward center—almost the addiction center—in the brain that can have us act in a compulsive way to seek certain types of ...
Substance dependence, also known as drug dependence, is a biopsychological situation whereby an individual's functionality is dependent on the necessitated re-consumption of a psychoactive substance because of an adaptive state that has developed within the individual from psychoactive substance consumption that results in the experience of withdrawal and that necessitates the re-consumption ...