Neurobiology of addiction in Time Magazine

Time magazine has an article that investigates the neuroscience of addiction and why some people find it so hard to give up drink and drugs.

The article takes an approach to addiction know as the ‘disease model’.

In its strongest form, this theory suggests that some people have a particular neurological weakness that makes them more likely to become addicted when they encounter certain substances.

Essentially, it suggests that the ‘disease’, often considered to be genetic in origin, exists before the problem behaviour.

The actual addiction is thought to be an interaction between the disease and the substance which leads to compulsive substance taking and seeking.

However, it’s also important to realise that many of the most addictive drugs directly affect a system that is also involved reward processing.

In other words, the thing that makes you feel good also affects the system that helps you judge how valuable things are.

This tends to affect your judgement of how bad you want something, and, over time, the system becomes more sensitive so it increases desire more easily,

This is known as the incentive-sensitization view and is one of the most influential neurobiological theories of addiction [pdf].

However, it has largely been developed on the basis of animal research and has been criticised for ignoring social factors.

For example, Jim Orford’s influential book Excessive Appetites (ISBN 0471499471) notes that heavy consumption of the same substance can have a very different impact depending on the cultural context.

Other than its (perhaps deliberately) narrow focus, the Time article is a competent look at the neurobiology of addiction.

UPDATE: Grabbed from the comments – a sharp-eyed observation from Resa:

I was reading this article the other day, and to my amusement, the pituitary gland had been incorrectly labeled as the amygdala in the illustration of the dopamine reward pathway. This little mishap is present in both online and print versions of the article.

You can see the offending diagram here.

Link to Time article ‘How We Get Addicted’.