Monday, 30 April 2012
Theories on Drug Addiction
The abusive consumption of a drug can result in dependency on it. The various phenomena associated with drug dependency—also commonly referred to as “drug addiction”—are fairly well known: initial pleasure, then tolerance, withdrawal, and so on. But these phenomena are so complex that it is hard to construct satisfactory models for them. Hence, many theories have been developed to try to explain drug dependency/addiction, and these theories are still being debated today.
The Intermediate (green) link below takes you to an explanation of one of these theories, the opponent-process theory, complete with diagrams.
The Advanced (red) link takes you to a discussion of some recent neurochemical data that tend to support the effects described in the opponent-process model.
Addiction and the Opponent Process Theory
Addiction and the brain antireward system
Pleasure and Pain | No comments







