Lecture 21: addiction

Question 1

Give an argument supporting the hypothesis of addiction as a brain disease

Answer 1

• brains with addiction are different than those without (just like hearts with disease are diff. than hearts without)
• part of theory: drugs can cause addicts’ brains to become different
• DA D2 receptors are much lower in addiction

Question 2

Give an argument supporting the hypothesis of addiction as choice.

Answer 2

• drug behavior is determined by consequences (cost/ben)
  –> cocaine vs money
• quit without treatment
• people choose to stop –> reasons like their family, shame, embarrassment, etc

Question 3

What does the opponent process theory say? How does it explain tolerance?

Answer 3

A-process: effect of drug –> imbalance, disturb homeostasis
B-process: body compensates (opposes) restore homeostasis
- after chronic use, the body expects the A-process, and does the B-process in anticipation
- the compensation gets stronger, and the experience gets weaker
- this is tolerance –> need more of the drug (more A-process) to get the same experience

Question 4

How does this graph support the idea of addiction as a choice?
(graph of cocaine choices vs money choices)

Answer 4

• people can make a logical choice between drugs and money
• if it were purely a disease, they wouldn’t be able to choose the money, they would only be able to choose the drugs
• they can do a cost/benefit

Question 5

Describe the Vietnam study

Answer 5

• asked ab drug use before/after
• needed to be clean to come home
• of those who were clean, 20% said they were dependent in Vietnam –> 10% took opiates again in US –> 1% dependent
• of those not clean –> 75% said addicted –> 33% took opiates again in US –> 7% still dependent

Question 6

Draw conclusions about addiction in the group from the Vietnam study

Answer 6

• difficult to support brain disease or choice theory
• most people who used in Vietnam stopped using in the US
• those who kept using didn’t become addicted
• best predictor of continued use –> pre-service use of drugs

Question 7

How do the different hypothesis of addiction affect possible treatments? (e.g., if addiction is a choice, the line of treatment should focus on… whereas if addiction is a brain disease the treatments should focus on… )

Answer 7

If addiction is a choice, then drug use is likely self-medicating to cope with a difficult situation. The line of treatment should focus on solving the difficult situation.
- ex. problem is cocaine use to manage depression. treat depression symptoms

If addiction is a brain disease, the treatments should focus on “re-wiring” the brain so it becomes less dependent on the drugs and returns back to a normal state. It would have more active DA D2 receptors