Journal
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
Volume 65, Issue -, Pages 341-361Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.04.006
Keywords
Drug addiction; Nucleus accumbens; Ventral striatum; Prefrontal cortex; Dopamine; Working memory; Decision making; Reward; Motivation; Cognition; kappa-Opioid antagonist; Trans cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Categories
Funding
- Fondazione Banco di Sardegna
- Uniss
- DPA
- MIUR
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Drug addiction is a compulsive behavioral abnormality. In spite of pharmacological treatments and psychosocial support to reduce or eliminate drug intake, addiction tends to persist over time. Preclinical and human observations have converged on the hypothesis that addiction represents the pathological deterioration of neural processes that normally serve affective and cognitive functioning. The major elements of persistent compulsive drug use are hypothesized to be structural, cellular and molecular that underlie enduring changes in several forebrain circuits that receive input from midbrain dopamine neurons and are involved in affective (e.g. ventral striatum) and cognitive (e.g. prefrontal cortex) mechanisms. Here we review recent progress in identifying crucial elements useful to understand the pathophysiology of the disease and its treatments. Manipulation of neuropeptides brain systems and pharmacological targeting of K-opioid receptors and/or drug metabolism may hold beneficial effects at affective and cognitive level. Non-pharmacological, highly innovative approaches such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation may reveal unsuspected potential and promise to be the first neurobiology-based therapeutics in addiction. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available