Scientific advances over the past 20 years have shown that drug addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease that results from the prolonged effects of drugs on the brain. As with many other brain diseases, addiction has embedded behavioral and social-context aspects that are important parts of the disorder itself. Therefore, the most effective treatment approaches will include biological, behavio...

. . . Among the basic needs of children which our large urban centres fail to provide are : adequate housing, modern and adequately manned schools, appropriate recreational facilities, opportunities for identification with responsible adults, freedom from racial and religious discrimination, opportunities to achieve social and emotional maturity by sharing community activities under responsible...

Based on the dopamine hypotheses of cocaine addiction and the assumption of decrement of brain reward system sensitivity after long-term drug exposure, we propose a computational model for cocaine addiction. Utilizing average reward temporal difference reinforcement learning, we incorporate the elevation of basal reward threshold after long-term drug exposure into the model of drug addiction pr...

Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug intake, loss of control over intake, and impairment in social and occupational function. Animal models have been developed for various stages of the addiction cycle with a focus in our work on the motivational effects of drug dependence. A conceptual framework focused on allostatic changes in reward function that le...

Most adults have used a potentially addictive drug at least once in their lifetime, if caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine are included in addition to illicit drugs. In some cases, contact with a substance is so frequent and socially accepted that many in society fail to recognize it as a “drug.” However, relatively few people develop sufficient problems with drug use to meet the formal criteria fo...

In this review, we highlight the role of neuroimaging techniques in studying the emotional and cognitive-behavioral components of the addiction syndrome by focusing on the neural substrates subserving them. The phenomenology of drug addiction can be characterized by a recurrent pattern of subjective experiences that includes drug intoxication, craving, bingeing, and withdrawal with the cycle cu...

It has long been hypothesized that conditioning mechanisms play major roles in addiction. Specifically, the associations between rewarding properties of drugs of abuse and the drug context can contribute to future use and facilitate the transition from initial drug use into drug dependency. On the other hand, the self-medication hypothesis of drug abuse suggests that negative consequences of dr...

A conceptual structure for drug addiction focused on allostatic changes in reward function that lead to excessive drug intake provides a heuristic framework with which to identify the neurobiologic neuroadaptive mechanisms involved in the development of drug addiction. The brain reward system implicated in the development of addiction is comprised of key elements of a basal forebrain macrostruc...

The chief objective of this research study was to assess the socio-economic effects of drug use on the families of addicts in Peshawar city, Pakistan with main focus on drug addicts admitted in rehabilitation centers run by Dost Welfare Foundation as the universe. A total of 108 respondents were randomly selected from the universe. Eight hypotheses were tested using paired t-test to analyze the...