Theories of Addiction: Breaking it Down
We all walk around daily with thoughts, behaviors, and conditioned routines. For many of us in society, we wake up, shower, eat, go to work, relax, and sleep. Rinse, wash, and repeat. In this daily routine, our brains function normally, and we allow thoughts to pass and behaviors and emotions to come and go without giving many of them a second thought. What about a brain that is addicted to drugs, though? How does the brain exemplify its addiction through behaviors? To understand these questions, we first have to gain a general knowledge of how the brain and drugs work and some important chemicals within it. Everyone wants a quick fix, but understanding the biology behind addiction allows us a greater depth of understanding of how recovery from addiction can be a lengthy process. How Does Addiction Affect the Different Parts of the Brain? Before we go any further, we must first look at the brain as a whole and then break it down into the parts that play an important role in executing complex tasks, sleep, memory, and emotional regulation. Pleasure & Reward Centers in the Brain Most drugs affect the dopamine pathways in the brain, specifically the mesolimbic pathway. This is what is known as the pleasure and reward center of the brain. This pathway controls an individual’s response to awards and such things as food and sex, but it also controls the response to substances people abuse. It regulates the determination and motivation to repeat a pleasurable experience by storing in memory the steps taken to achieve it. While this all might sound complicated, it isn’t. Think about a pleasurable behavior you engage in and begin to break it down from macro to micro. How do you know it’s coming? What steps do you take? Do you feel euphoric when getting closer to enjoying the experience? What is the response once the behavior is complete? The mesolimbic pathway that is working for your pleasurable experiences is the same for people who are using drugs. Where it differs for those suffering from addiction is in the behaviors leading up to and the mechanism used to get the dopamine response. Synaptic Pruning When we think about it from afar, the brain is simply the mechanism by which we learn. However, each of us learns differently and engages in different rewarding behaviors. This is because the brain is plastic throughout most of its lifespan. It adapts to learn and strengthens where information is more readily used and prunes information that is not. Synaptic pruning is what helps older people become more efficient at their jobs, helps babies navigate their sensory and motor abilities, and helps teens organize neural networks to become more processing efficient. The same process controls addiction and the course of relapse over lengthy periods of time. Neural Networks The brain is a complex system of many complex regions, all of which are constantly firing within neural networks. Neural networks contain the highway that connects the different parts of the brain together. They are highly social, and without interaction, the brain would cease to learn. Neurons and networks are strengthened by the experience of a stimulus, whether that stimulus is good or bad. Therefore, one can assume the excitation of a neuronal network isn’t always positive based on how the person is experiencing something; in this case, drugs of abuse. Someone who has experienced trauma or using drugs will have the same reinforcing neuronal excitation another person would have in a happy moment. These become integrated into the brain differently based on the experience and can even shape our future behaviors. What Does Addiction Do to the Brain? With repeated use, the brain adapts, and the neural circuitry becomes altered due to the drugs hijacking the neuron and altering the intake or reuptake of specific chemicals. This causes an abnormality of the circuity and leads to the brain now needing the substances to regulate itself because its natural state to produce certain chemicals has been overwhelmed or overridden. The brain, for being as complex as it is, struggles to differentiate between love, food, sex, and drugs. It prunes neurons and builds stronger bonds and attachment to experiences that are rewarding. When a drug is introduced to the body, the brain says this is highly rewarding and, as a result, wants more and more of it. With repeated administration, drugs have affected the brain’s natural ability to produce endogenous chemicals. This is the point when addiction begins and when many people enter treatment. They recognize that either they can no longer function in specific realms of life without utilizing an external substance or the substance they are using embeds them in a life not worth living. These realms can be occupational, emotional, and social, all of which are intertwined. Addiction is an encompassing disease in which once the drug use is terminated, the specific reasons a person picks up a drug can then begin to be processed through psychotherapy. The brain also has to rewire itself and adapt to producing endogenous chemicals on its own again. Think about when you injure yourself, and the body takes a multistep process to help heal the wounds. The same can be said for drug addiction and the brain. When drug use ceases, the brain must adapt to regain its homeostasis. This can be a lengthy process and is dependent on the user’s drug of choice and length of use. How Does Addiction Change the Chemical Makeup of the Brain? As we talked about earlier, your brain is constantly changing and evolving with every new thing you experience. In most cases, those changes and evolutions are actually a good thing. It’s what keeps us, as humans, able to adapt to new things happening both around us and around the world. Humans are constantly evolving and will continue to do so. Drugs tend to affect your brain in a negative way, especially when you have grown dependent or even addicted to them. Because
