Defining Addiction
Brain
- Energy cost
- Learning and behavior change
- Engage in goal-directed behavior
- wants and desires
Methods of consumption
- Inhalation (reaches brain more quickly because don’t need to travel to right side of heart
first)
- Oral Administration (slow, need to travel through the intestine, first pass effect)
- Injection
- Skin (patch)
- Most ROAs: absorbed into bloodstream → travel to right side of heart → lungs → left
side of heart → brain
Substance Use Disorder
1. Tolerance
2. Withdrawal
(homeostasis criteria)
3. Cravings
4. Great deal of time spent obtaining, using, recovering
5. Fail to fulfil major roles ex. work, school, home
6. Persistent social or interpersonal problems caused by use
7. Important social, occupational, recreational activities given up or reduced
8. Use in physically hazardous situations
9. Use despite psychological problems caused by use
(motivation spiral)
10.Using larger amount or for longer time than intended
11.Persistent desire or unsuccessful attempts to cut down
(self-control criteria)
- Mild (2-3), Moderate (4-5), Severe (6+)
Criterias
- Homeostasis criteria: substances changed homeostasis biologically and psychologically
- Motivational spiral criteria: substance is the motivational magnet, external cues and
habits, pairings, and desires
- Failed will power/self control criteria: cognitive high level thinking
,Debate: Is addiction a disease?
- Chronic brain disease?
- Brain/bio-based diagnosis or normal responses?
- More common in psychologically unhealthy environment (rat self-administration study)
- Price sensitivity
- Disease perspective vs Moral perspective → scientific perspective (disease explanation,
self-medication explanation, potent but dysfunctional learned disre explanation)
Emotions and Addiction
Emotions - Intro
- Body’s management (family’s budget: immediate fix vs longterm recovery)
- Adaptive transformation (evolutionary)
- Emotion affect: sensations in body, what we want to do, how we view ourselves, what we
expect of the future, how we feel about and treat others
- Flexibility of prasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
- Eliciting right emotion - temporary wide-spread changes in organism that result in
systematic alteration of behavioral tendencies
- Universal, pancultural, functional (fear expression enhances sensory acquisition through
eyes opening and increased velocity)
Neuro-transmitters
- Neuromodulators: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine
- Not abundant: just a few places that synthesize theses neurotransmitters
- wide broadcast contrast to lots of tissue at ones (vs one-on-one or few
communication between neurons)
- Not good for sophisticated computation but is better for accomplishing
transformations
- Plays a big role in emotions
Positive emotions states - Broaden and Build Theory
- Broaden momentary thought-action repertoires and lead to action that build enduring
personal resources
- Longterm recovery and mantainense
- Ex. joy - urge to play, be creative, bonding, excercising; interest - exploring, learning;
contentment - savoring, new views of self and world
- Upward spiral of resources accrued
- Increases breadth of attentional selection
- Positive emotion: broader attention, negative emotion: narrower focus
, Feelings
- Interoception of emotions changes (experience after awareness)
- Vs emotions, which are automatic and unconscious
Relating to drug use
- Psychoactive induce positive affect
- Negative emotions increase drug use
- Controlled substance schedule
Sadness and addiction
- Irrevocable loss leads to prioritizing choices that replace loss
- Trigger reward seeking behavior
- Implicit motivational drive to re-establish equilibrium
- Self-focus lens
- Relapse interal triggers: negative feelings and self medication; positive feelings
Genetic and Addiction
Heritability
- Genes only matter given a particular environment context
- Environment only matter given a particular genetic context
- Calculating heritability: (know conceptually)
1. Histogram of trait’s distribution - measure variance
2. Histogram of difference scores of clone pairs - measure variance
3. Score how much smaller percentage (2nd-1st) measure of variance
- Example: SD of plant height - SD of child-parent difference = % heritability
Using Twin Studies
- MZ twins reared apart (rare)
- MZ vs DZ twins raised in same household (studies genetic and family environment
overlap)
- How much genes contributed: doubling
Misconceptions about heritability
- Heritability is NOT context independent
- More homogeneity = higher estimates of heritability
- Heritability is linked to specific context
- Heritability of things higher in countries with lower gini co-efficient / less
variability in income
Brain
- Energy cost
- Learning and behavior change
- Engage in goal-directed behavior
- wants and desires
Methods of consumption
- Inhalation (reaches brain more quickly because don’t need to travel to right side of heart
first)
- Oral Administration (slow, need to travel through the intestine, first pass effect)
- Injection
- Skin (patch)
- Most ROAs: absorbed into bloodstream → travel to right side of heart → lungs → left
side of heart → brain
Substance Use Disorder
1. Tolerance
2. Withdrawal
(homeostasis criteria)
3. Cravings
4. Great deal of time spent obtaining, using, recovering
5. Fail to fulfil major roles ex. work, school, home
6. Persistent social or interpersonal problems caused by use
7. Important social, occupational, recreational activities given up or reduced
8. Use in physically hazardous situations
9. Use despite psychological problems caused by use
(motivation spiral)
10.Using larger amount or for longer time than intended
11.Persistent desire or unsuccessful attempts to cut down
(self-control criteria)
- Mild (2-3), Moderate (4-5), Severe (6+)
Criterias
- Homeostasis criteria: substances changed homeostasis biologically and psychologically
- Motivational spiral criteria: substance is the motivational magnet, external cues and
habits, pairings, and desires
- Failed will power/self control criteria: cognitive high level thinking
,Debate: Is addiction a disease?
- Chronic brain disease?
- Brain/bio-based diagnosis or normal responses?
- More common in psychologically unhealthy environment (rat self-administration study)
- Price sensitivity
- Disease perspective vs Moral perspective → scientific perspective (disease explanation,
self-medication explanation, potent but dysfunctional learned disre explanation)
Emotions and Addiction
Emotions - Intro
- Body’s management (family’s budget: immediate fix vs longterm recovery)
- Adaptive transformation (evolutionary)
- Emotion affect: sensations in body, what we want to do, how we view ourselves, what we
expect of the future, how we feel about and treat others
- Flexibility of prasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
- Eliciting right emotion - temporary wide-spread changes in organism that result in
systematic alteration of behavioral tendencies
- Universal, pancultural, functional (fear expression enhances sensory acquisition through
eyes opening and increased velocity)
Neuro-transmitters
- Neuromodulators: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine
- Not abundant: just a few places that synthesize theses neurotransmitters
- wide broadcast contrast to lots of tissue at ones (vs one-on-one or few
communication between neurons)
- Not good for sophisticated computation but is better for accomplishing
transformations
- Plays a big role in emotions
Positive emotions states - Broaden and Build Theory
- Broaden momentary thought-action repertoires and lead to action that build enduring
personal resources
- Longterm recovery and mantainense
- Ex. joy - urge to play, be creative, bonding, excercising; interest - exploring, learning;
contentment - savoring, new views of self and world
- Upward spiral of resources accrued
- Increases breadth of attentional selection
- Positive emotion: broader attention, negative emotion: narrower focus
, Feelings
- Interoception of emotions changes (experience after awareness)
- Vs emotions, which are automatic and unconscious
Relating to drug use
- Psychoactive induce positive affect
- Negative emotions increase drug use
- Controlled substance schedule
Sadness and addiction
- Irrevocable loss leads to prioritizing choices that replace loss
- Trigger reward seeking behavior
- Implicit motivational drive to re-establish equilibrium
- Self-focus lens
- Relapse interal triggers: negative feelings and self medication; positive feelings
Genetic and Addiction
Heritability
- Genes only matter given a particular environment context
- Environment only matter given a particular genetic context
- Calculating heritability: (know conceptually)
1. Histogram of trait’s distribution - measure variance
2. Histogram of difference scores of clone pairs - measure variance
3. Score how much smaller percentage (2nd-1st) measure of variance
- Example: SD of plant height - SD of child-parent difference = % heritability
Using Twin Studies
- MZ twins reared apart (rare)
- MZ vs DZ twins raised in same household (studies genetic and family environment
overlap)
- How much genes contributed: doubling
Misconceptions about heritability
- Heritability is NOT context independent
- More homogeneity = higher estimates of heritability
- Heritability is linked to specific context
- Heritability of things higher in countries with lower gini co-efficient / less
variability in income
