Citation: Herman MA and Roberto M (2015) The addicted brain: understanding the neurophysiological mechanisms of addictive disorders. The consumption of chemical substances that produce transient feelings of euphoria or pleasure and the development of dependence on those substances by a subset of individuals is as old as the human race itself. Currently, the cost of addiction to illicit drugs in...

Addiction involves alterations in multiple brain regions that are associated with functions such as memory, motivation and executive control. Indeed, it is now well accepted that addictive drugs produce long-lasting molecular and structural plasticity changes in corticostriatal-limbic loops. However, there are brain regions that might be relevant to addiction other than the prefrontal cortex, a...

Addiction's biological basis has been the focus of much research. The findings have persuaded experts and the public that drug use in addicts is compulsive. But the word "compulsive" identifies patterns of behavior, and all behavior has a biological basis, including voluntary actions. Thus, the question is not whether addiction has a biology, which it must, but whether it is sensible to say tha...

Drug addiction is likely to affect all of our lives, with any luck not through our own actions but probably because of one or more of our family and friends. Now firmly entrenched as a brain disease (Leshner, 1999; Wise, 2000), drug addiction is among the most costly such diseases in modern society. Drug addiction is most often defined as a chronically relapsing disorder in which the addict exp...

Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), especially microRNAs, are reported to be involved in a variety of biological processes, including several processes related to drug addiction. It has been suggested that the biological functions of opioids, one typical type of addictive drugs, are regulated by ncRNAs. In the current review, we examine a variety of mechanisms through which ncRNAs could regulate μ-opioid...

The feeding process is required for basic life, influenced by environment cues and tightly regulated according to demands of the internal milieu by regulatory brain circuits. Although eating behaviour cannot be considered "addictive" under normal circumstances, people can become "addicted" to this behaviour, similarly to how some people are addicted to drugs. The symptoms, cravings and causes o...

BACKGROUND Drug abuse is on the rise. Drug addiction lowers the general immunity of the body. Tuberculosis is known to be one of the major infectious diseases with a high incidence among drug addicts. Treatment of drug addicts suffering from tuberculosis is a challenge to the treating physician. METHODS An interventional prospective study which involved free de-addiction drugs and motivation ...