The Cognitive Neuroscience of Addiction

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What is the estimated genetic contribution to addiction (as a percentage)?
50%.
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What do associative learning theories of addiction construe drug taking as?
Conditioning, with the drug playing the part of the reinforcer. It acts to either strengthen or weaken the relationship between stimulus and response.
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What is context-driven relapse most frequently seen in?
Rehabilitation.
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In what contexts can relapse increase or decrease?
Increase in rehab centres and decreases when treatment is carried out in contexts equivalent to those in which the addiction developed.
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Why are extinction procedures that involve exposure more effective?
Because exposure to multiple cues reduces the associative strength of these cues.
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How was it discovered that a tolerance to adrenaline can be conditioned?
The heart rate of dogs injected with adrenaline increased less and less each time.
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What is a conditioned compensatory response?
When an organism compensates for the effect of a stimulus by adjusting their physiology.
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How do placebos work in a conditioned compensatory response?
They have the same affect as the stimulus. The effect is brought about by context-related cues.
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What is usually the cause of drug oversdoses?
Taking the same amount of drug in an unfamiliar context.
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How does the body prevent excess inhibition of synapses caused by alcohol?
The organism reduces the sensitivity of GABA receptors in inhibitory synapses by increasing activity in excitatory synapses.
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In what contexts does alcohol have a stronger effect?
When consumed as part of unfamiliar drinks, because the change in tastes reduces the CCR. Also when consumed in the company of new people.
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What is tolerance?
A CCR to the effects of a drug. It is formed of homoeostatic protection to reduce the potentially harmful effects of the drug.
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How can tolerance lead to an overdose?
If the conditions necessary for tolerance to be effective are absent. People tend to increase dosage sizes due to tolerance.
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How can alcohol tolerance that leads to addiction cause withdrawal symptoms?
When consumption is ceased, it leads to an imbalance between excitation and inhibition.This causes psychological and motor agitation (withdrawal symptoms).
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What causes withdrawal symptoms?
They are caused by the inertia of adjustments in the nervous system to combat the effects of a drug when its no longer there.
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How are drugs rewarding?
They lead to high levels of euphoria.
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What do encounters with natural reinforcers lead to in animals?
Dopamine release from VTA neurons in their synapses within Nucleus Accumbens.
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What does presentation of a variety of reinforcers causes?
Increased activation in the Basal Ganglia, particularly in the Nucleus Accumbens.
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What information contradicts the idea that dopamine antagonists increases anhedonia?
People with Parkinson's disease have abnormally low levels of dopamine, but they don't suffer loss of ability to like pleasurable stimuli.
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What are some findings of long-term drug users (2)?
Taking the drug results in less euphoria each time, the craving of the drug increases.
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What is incentive salience theory?
Dopamenergic circuits involving NA and VTA is not so much responsible for the pleasure obtained from a drug, but for the motivation to obtain it, although it does not deny that euphoria induced by drugs contributes to consumption.
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What does incentive salience theory propose about addiction?
Addicts become sensitised to drugs because their use strongly potentiates the motivation-related dopaminergic synapses in the brain with repeated use of the drug, leading to greater response independent from euphoric effects of the drug.
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How may 'self-medication' be seen as a factor leading to addiction?
Co-morbid sufferers may engage in drug use to alleviate psychological symptoms of a disorder.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What do associative learning theories of addiction construe drug taking as?

Back

Conditioning, with the drug playing the part of the reinforcer. It acts to either strengthen or weaken the relationship between stimulus and response.

Card 3

Front

What is context-driven relapse most frequently seen in?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

In what contexts can relapse increase or decrease?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Why are extinction procedures that involve exposure more effective?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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