lecture 14 LOs

Question 1

what is drug craving

Answer 1

a disproportionate amount of time spent thinking about drug use and acquiring them

Question 2

what is chronically relapsing disorder

Answer 2

habitual drug use that persists in spite of the adverse effects on health and social life
remission is often followed by relapse despite the negative consequences

Question 3

what is physical dependence on drugs

Answer 3

suffering from withdrawal symptoms after drug use that may motivate them to return to using

Question 4

def withdrawal

Answer 4

bodys reaction to elimination of drug from the system after repeated exposure

Question 5

def conditioned withdrawal

Answer 5

when cues associated with drug taking can trigger withdrawal like symptoms

Question 6

2 routes of administration

Answer 6

IV injection/inhalation: yields a rapid drug entry into brain and fast onset of drug action
oral/transdermal: results in slow absorption

Question 7

what does fast onset and shorter duration of action produce

Answer 7

addiction

Question 8

what does IV and inhalation produce effects of

Answer 8

strong effects of euphoria as a result of rapid drug delivery to the brain

Question 9

what is required for long term neurobiological changes so that addiction can develop

Answer 9

repeated exposure

Question 10

what are environmental or psychosocial factors of addiciton

Answer 10

life stress, comorbidity w anxiety/depression/familial/socal factors

Question 11

physical dependence model of addiction

Answer 11

addiction is driven by desire to curtail withdrawal symptoms
problems: relapse often occurs after withdrawal symptoms have passed, some drugs do not have severe withdrawal
detox users still remain addicted
treatments used to curb withdrawal are not 100% effective

Question 12

what is the positive reward model of addiction

Answer 12

addiction is driven by the pleasurable feelings drugs induce
problems: habitual use can continue even if the ‘rush’ they get is not as good as it is in the past (ie tolerance)
some drugs (ie nicotine) do not give as much of a euphoric rush as other drugs (ie heroin) but are just as addictive

Question 13

areas included in the reward circuitry of addiction

Answer 13

PFC: executive functions, flexibility, emotional regulation, response to stress, behavioural inhibition
amygdala: different subnuclei regulate learning about reward-predictive cues (basolateral nucleus) and mediating response to stress (central nucleus)
NAc: part of the ventral striatum, mediates motivational aspects of reward and approach towards reward-related stimuli
dopamine (DA): of all the nodes within the reward circuit, DA projections (esp from the VTA to NAc) has received the most attention in terms of its involvement in drug use/addiction