Addiction Pharmacology
“Neuroscience reveals some of the most important conditions that are necessary for behaviour and awareness” Taills R.
Evaluate this statement in relation to addiction looking specifically at psychostimulants.
Ajomon Joseph
The neurobiology of addiction
Introduction
Neuroscience is started to reveal the neurochemical changes that occur within particular functional regions of the brain that are responsible for the behaviour in addiction, so neuroscience and motivational impairment that require treatment. Our cognitive abilities enables us to quickly identify which activities are worth pursuing in our environment . In addiction , drug use become over –learned because repeated drug use can over activities
…show more content…
(2009, p.31 ) discuss the idea that neuroscience offer that addiction is a pathological behaviour in which addictive drugs co-opt normal learning and motivating pathways in the brain so that drug taking comes to dominate all other goal directed activities such a view has the potential to not only unlike a wide array of new and powerful treatment of addiction that target or ameliorate these changes. Given the central important of the brain and the strong moral attitude that many people feel towards who abuse or are addicted to drugs , the nature and impact of these changes needs to be considered such an analysis will need to critically examine the emerging neuroscience research on …show more content…
whether it is drug or other ,but feels powerless to cease the behaviour .indeed that is what characterises addiction ;when the compulsion to regain the initially pleasurable behaviour becomes too much for the individual to control (Giddens,2007).Addiction does not require previous experience , in terms of the biological or psychological effects . It is this memory that drives addictive behaviour where the individual remembers pleasuarable experience and seeks to recreate them(Vrecko and
The biological explanation of the brain in regards to drug addiction is interesting. According to the textbook, "Studies have found convincing evidence that drugs such as alcohol, heroin, and cocaine act directly on the brain mechanisms that are responsible for reward and punishment. " When one use drugs, the drug stimulates the areas of the brain that create the sensation of pleasure and suppress the pleasure of pain, as, a result, the user receives reinforcement to engage in further drug-taking behavior. The psychological explanation of drug abuse, "Focus on either personality disorders or the effects of social learning and reinforcement on drug-taking behaviors."
Around 270 million people had used psychoactive drugs in the past year and about 35 million are estimated to be affected by drug abuse disorders. Drug addiction is a chronic disease characterized by drug seeking and use that is compulsive, or difficult to control, despite consequences. It is very common for a person to relapse even after treatment. As a person uses drugs, their brain becomes more adapted to the drug, increasing the tolerance of the person. Long term effects could cause a change in chemical systems and circuits of the brain.
An article by Knepper (2013) mentioned that the presence of addiction interaction disorder in a person may promote his or her severity in the addiction cycle. Addiction interaction disorder was introduced by Carnes (2011) which means a person may have multiple addictions at the same time and these addictions combine to interact, reinforce and become part of one another. Looking at individuals who struggle with primary addiction: sexual and secondary addiction: alcohol, the secondary addiction may ritualize the primary addiction which makes a person alternate between the addiction cycles and relapse deeper to their addictive behavior (Carnes, 2011). Four Stages of Addiction According to Butler (2009), below are the four stages of addiction that a person goes through from the first trial of the addictive behavior.
Opiate addiction treatment centers Alcohol abuse and Opiate addiction continues to impacts millions of lives in the United States every day. The situation is so bad that government and private partners are coming together to establish treatment centers for opiate addiction. Many states in U.S have more than 20 drug treatment centers and rehabilitation facilities. These treatment facilities offer quality drug addiction treatment to addicts of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs in the Opioid family. They follow a set of rules and guidelines provided by state regulatory bodies and the United States Federal government.
Addiction is a disorder of the brain where a person feels he has to take the drug despite its destructive effects (Volkow, Koob and McLellan). Dependence is a state normally associated when an
1. “But addiction is another one of those words— dismissive, full of judgment, too encompassing—and while that is to some extent on the mark, a cautionary on many levels” (pg. 8). This section directly relates to the taboo recreation idea of addiction and is one of the reason drugs are considered taboo. Unlike other forms of leisure drugs can affect your body in such a way that you need them and without them you will experience withdrawals.
A drug addiction occurs when someone uses substances to give themselves a feeling of pleasure even if it has negative consequences for them or others. When an addiction occurs the brain changes too making it extremely difficult to quit. This is because the brain wants more of the pleasurable substance because it’s giving dopamine. Once someone is addicted to something all they want is that thing and they will do anything to get it.
Addiction is the number one cause of death in the US. Addiction can run in the family and be passed down through genes. Generally, that’s how addiction starts but it can start by recreational use, and then turn into something far more serious. In order to break the addiction, there is a 12 step program to follow, but one must be willing to admit there is a problem. Recovery is hard, but it is possible to maintain.
Across the world abusing prescription drugs causes more deaths than street drugs do combined (“International Statistics”). Prescription drugs are so easy to get ahold of and so easy to get addicted to. The misuse of prescription drugs have gotten out of hand. These drugs can cause unintentional overdoses easily. The misuse of prescription drugs can lead to addiction, affect the health of users in a dramatic way, and even cause death.
As per a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, "Addiction is
Michael Bader wrote the article, “The Science of Addition and Recovery” and was posted online on The Huffington Post on October 16, 2015. We can now with certainty, and backed by lots of research, that our psychology and previous experiences and emotions play a huge part in answering the question: how susceptible are we to becoming addicted to a certain drug? This is not new information for addicts because they usually do feel an isolation of some sort and, most times as well, having grown up with family that had addictions or big flaws as well. Johann Hari wrote a book where he gathered lots of evidence and research to support this view. Hari had shown various studies where they had followed children grow up in different situations and family
When a person falls in love or gets addicted to drugs, their bodies behave in the same way. The warm and cozy feeling of being in love floods the brain with chemicals and hormones that produce feelings of pleasure, obsession and attachment. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet did not just fall in love with Romeo. Lovers also feel a rush of exhilaration when thinking about him or her; it is a form of “intoxication.” Both love and addiction engage the same regions of the brain, the “rewards system.”
As we can see by the four different development domains, the abuse of substances has several negative outcomes and can be severely detrimental to the abuser. Although it is difficult to stop the abuse of substances, people who are dealing with this issue should seek help. Relying on drugs is
Drug Addiction : Treatment or Punishment? When a person takes a drug the chemicals affect the brain by interfering with how the neurons send messages. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the structure of Marijuana and Heroin mimic a natural neurotransmitter which tricks the receptors into allowing the drug to activate neurons inside the brain which interferes with messages and leads to abnormalities of behavior. With other drugs such as cocaine there is an abnormally large amount of neurotransmitters released which disrupts communication channels.
All these characteristics led to the conclusion that drug addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease that is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use. It is considered as a brain disease because drugs change the structure of the brain, and how it works. Every drug affects different systems of the brain. For example, in the case of cocaine, as the brain is adapted in the presence of the specific drug, brain regions responsible for judgment, decision-making, learning, and memory begin to physically change, making certain behaviors “hard-wired.” In some brain regions, connections between neurons are pruned back.