We present a brief overview of the incentive sensitization theory of addiction. This posits that addiction is caused primarily by drug-induced sensitization in the brain mesocorticolimbic systems that attribute incentive salience to reward-associated stimuli. If rendered hypersensitive, these systems cause pathological incentive motivation ('wanting') for drugs. We address some current question...

Abstinence is the deprivation of previously abused substances that lead to addiction. The long-term and excessive use of a drug causes different biochemical and neurophysiological changes. After addiction is established, deprivation causes withdrawal, whose symptoms, duration and degree vary among substances. Common symptoms include anxiety, depression, tremors, impaired thinking, and changes i...

The question of addiction specifically concerns (1), the process by which drug-taking behavior, in certain individuals, evolves into compulsive patterns of drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior that take place at the expense of most other activities and (2), the inability to cease drug-taking; the problem of relapse. In this paper current biopsychological views of addiction are critically evalu...

The development of pharmacotherapies for cocaine addiction has been disappointingly slow. However, new neurobiological knowledge of how the brain is changed by chronic pharmacological insult with cocaine is revealing novel targets for drug development. Certain drugs currently being tested in clinical trials tap into the underlying cocaine-induced neuroplasticity, including drugs promoting GABA ...

Environmental conditions can dramatically influence the behavioral and neurochemical effects of drugs of abuse. For example, stress increases the reinforcing effects of drugs and plays an important role in determining the vulnerability to develop drug addiction. On the other hand, positive conditions, such as environmental enrichment, can reduce the reinforcing effects of psychostimulants and m...

Abuse of psychoactive substances can lead to drug addiction. In animals, addiction is best modeled by drug self-administration paradigms. It has been proposed that the crucial common denominator for the development of drug addiction is the ability of drugs of abuse to increase extracellular concentrations of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Studies using in vivo microdialysis and chron...

Adolescent drug addiction in Ukraine is a serious problem that requires proper attention and evaluation from modern society. Timely public reaction to this issue determines the methods of its solution ways prevent adolescent future. The urgency subject matter determined by danger among Ukrainian adolescents lack paid parents study most schools. Prospects for research area are need identify main...

One strategy in the search for a pharmacotherapy for cocaine abuse and dependence has been to use drugs with a similar mechanism of action as cocaine, or agonist substitution therapy. Research has indicated that cocaine’s behavioral effects are primarily a result of its blockade of the dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT) and norepinephrine (NE) transporters. Therefore, drugs that act either directl...

Abstract Background Drugs are chemicals which can disrupt the nerve cell functions of brain. The present study aims to investigate addiction related gene ( OPRM1 ) in three types addiction—drugs, alcohol and smoking. Pathway for was ascertained through KEGG database, hotspot mutations various populations were identified from Gnomad-exomes database. In silico analyses like SIFT, Polyphen, Hope, ...