Addiction can be defined as drug-induced changes in the central nervous system (CNS) that produce maladaptive alterations in spontaneous behavior and in the behavioral response to readministration of that drug. Maladaptive behaviors include those identified as criteria for addiction in the DSM-IV. In general what most psychiatric metrics describe as addiction associated behaviors is the emergen...

Although stealing among adolescents appears to be fairly common, an assessment of adolescent stealing and its relationship to other behaviors and health problems is incompletely understood. A large sample of high school students (n = 3,999) was examined by self-report survey with 153 questions concerning demographic characteristics, stealing behaviors, other health behaviors including substance...

Many recognize that several behaviors potentially affecting the reward circuitry in human brains lead to a loss of control and other symptoms of addiction in at least some individuals. Regarding Internet addiction, neuroscientific research supports the assumption that underlying neural processes are similar to substance addiction. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has recognized one su...

Drug addiction is a persistent brain disease with severe and sometimes fatal consequences. Addictive drugs induce long-lasting neuroadaptations in the functioning of the nervous system and currently there is no efficient pharmacological treatment that can successfully prevent or reverse these changes. As a consequence, addicted individuals often suffer from recurrent relapses, sometimes trigger...

Adverse experiences during childhood are associated with the development of psychiatric disorders later in life. In particular, childhood abuse and neglect are risk factors for addictive disorders, such as substance misuse and pathological gambling. Impulsivity and compulsivity are key features of these disorders. Therefore, we investigated whether childhood adversity might increase vulnerabili...

As the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, glutamate plays an undisputable integral role in opiate addiction. This relates, in part, to the fact that addiction is a disorder of learning and memory, and glutamate is required for most types of memory formation. As opiate addiction develops, the addict becomes conditioned to engage in addictive behaviors, and these behaviors can be tri...

Drug addiction has serious health and social consequences. In the last 50 years, a wide range of techniques have been developed to model specific aspects of drug-taking behaviors and have greatly contributed to the understanding of the neurobiological basis of drug abuse and addiction. In the last two decades, new models have been proposed in an attempt to capture the more genuine aspects of ad...

Article history: Received on: 13/02/2013 Revised on: 15/02/2013 Accepted on: 09/03/2013 Available online: 28/03/2013 Drug addiction presents a chronic relapsing disorder characterized by persistent drug-seeking and taking behaviors. Given the significant detrimental effects of this disease both socially and economically, a considerable research has been dedicated to understanding a number of is...

In this paper we create indices of resilience to identify adolescents at risk of smoking, drinking alcohol, and using illegal drugs. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, three manifestations of resilience were identified: overall-resilience, self/family-resilience, and self-resilience. Our analysis reveals that the overall-resilient were less likely to engage in...

Psychostimulants such as methamphetamine (MA) induce significant alterations in the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. These changes in HPA axis function are associated with altered stress-related behaviors and might contribute to addictive processes such as relapse. In this mini-review we discuss acute and chronic effects of MA (adult and developmental exposure) on the ...