An Article Review About Addiction

An Article Review About Addiction

        The topic of this article review is for me to gain a deeper understanding about addiction and why it happens. The reason I have choose this topic is because I personally have struggled with various addictions and I would like to gain more knowledge about why addiction is so hard to overcome. Luckily, I have been fortunate enough to be able to overcome my wants and desires but there are still times when I slip up and indulge. Some of these addictions such as the consumption of alcohol or the use of tobacco are a normal part of American culture. I do not think that the consumption of alcohol, tobacco or caffeine makes a person any less of a person by standards, however there has been various studies done that show correlations between these three addictive substances and negative health. Even though the experiments and studies have produced empirical data that is impossible to ignore, I still struggle with addiction. Through careful review of the article I choose to review. I hope to have a better understanding addictions, how behavior manifests into addiction and what triggers relapse.

        The journal that I have choose to review  was published by the US : American Psychological Association. The article is titled Stress, habits, and drug addiction: A Psychoneuroendocrinological Perspective. The authors of the article are Lars Schwabe from the Department of Cognitive Psychology at Ruhr-University Bochum located in Bochum, Germany; Anthony Dickinson from the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge located in Cambridge, United Kingdom and Oliver T Wolf from the Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum in Bochum, Germany. The article Stress, habits, and Drug Addiction purposes that “stress-induced changes in the neural circuits controlling instrumental action provide a potential mechanism by which stress affects the development of addiction and relapse vulnerability.” (Lars Schwabe Et. Al) The research that Lars Schwabe et. Al used to create this journal has been cited and is from various researchers.  The following is a summary of the findings I have found in this journal.

        Stress affects various parts of the brain. Amongst these regions, two particularly important regions in the brain are activated; the central dopaminergic and the noradrenergic system. The activation of these regions is in part responsible for the activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Through the activation of these systems, glucocorticoids are secreted in the brain. “In addition to glucocorticoids and catecholamines like adrenaline and noradrenaline, numerous other neutrotransmitters, neuropeptides and hormones are released during stress, such as vasopressin, substance P, neuropeptide Y, glutamate, or acetylcholine. Altogether, these stress-induced changes facilitate the individual's ability to face the imminent threat and are generally adaptive. However, if the stress responses are excessive or prolonged, they may promote pathologies, such as addiction” (; McEwen, 1998).

        Instrumental behavior, the behavior that is responsible for wanting to seek pleasant thing and avoid unpleasant things is controlled by two simultaneously operating systems. The goal directed system involves the association between a certain action and the incentive value of the certain outcome. The habitual system involves learning the association between stimuli and responses, without a link to the outcome of that behavior.

        Goal directed and habitually directed behavior can be distinguished by utilizing a devaluation paradigm. The utilization of a devaluation paradigm on rodents produced results that concluded that the rodents who acted on a goal directed impulse rather than a habitual impulse, had a clear distinction in the operative regions in the brain. Furthermore, extinctions made by lesions to various parts of the brain ceased specific types of behavior that are learned and linked to addiction. The article also had stated that lesions t specific part of the brain can also lead to subjects no displaying addiction at all. This observation was made on rodents.