Addiction
hideThe term "addiction" is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence, such as: drug addiction (e.g. alcoholism), video game addiction, crime, money, work addiction, compulsive overeating, problem gambling, computer addiction, nicotine addiction, pornography addiction, etc.
In medical terminology, an addiction is a chronic neurobiologic disorder that has genetic, psychosocial, and environmental dimensions and is characterized by one of the following: the continued use of a substance despite its detrimental effects, impaired control over the use of a drug (compulsive behavior), and preocupation with a drug's use for non-therapeutic purposes (i.e. craving the drug). Addiction is often accompanied the presence of deviant behaviors (for instance stealing money and forging prescriptions) that are used to obtain a drug.
Tolerance to a drug and physical dependence are not defining characteristics of addiction, although they typically accompany addiction to certain drugs. Tolerance is a pharmacologic phenomenon where the dose of a medication needs to be continually increase in order to maintain its desired effects. For instance, individuals with severe chronic pain taking opiate medications (like morphine) will need to continually increase the dose in order to maintain the drug's analgesic (pain-relieving) effects. Physical dependence is also a pharmacologic property and means that if a certain drug is abruptly discontinued, an individual will experience certain characteristic withdrawal signs and symptoms. Many drugs used for therapeutic purposes produce withdrawal symptoms when abruptly stopped, for instance oral steroids, certain antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and opiates.
However, common usage of the term addiction has spread to include psychological dependence. In this context, the term is used in drug addiction and substance abuse problems, but also refers to behaviors that are not generally recognized by the medical community as problems of addiction, such as compulsive overeating.
The term addiction is also sometimes applied to compulsions that are not substance-related, such as problem gambling and computer addiction. In these kinds of common usages, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user himself to his or her individual health, mental state or social life.
For more information about Addiction, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with addiction
Site for alcohol's action in the brain discovered
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jun 28, 2009 |
5 / 5 (10) |
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Alcohol's inebriating effects are familiar to everyone. But the molecular details of alcohol's impact on brain activity remain a mystery. A new study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies ...
Dopamine enhances expectation of pleasure in humans
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Nov 12, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (10) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Enhancing the effects of the brain chemical dopamine influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure, according to new research from the UCL Institute of Neurology.
Halting retrieval of drug-associated memories may prevent addiction relapse
Aug 12, 2008 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
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Disrupting the brain's retrieval of drug-associated memories may prevent relapse in drug addiction, according to new research in the August 13 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers reduced drug-seeking behavi ...
Scientists seek to manage dopamine's good and bad sides
Oct 07, 2009 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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The good, the bad and the ugly: That's a quick summary of the effects of dopamine, a natural brain chemical that's linked to pleasure, addiction and disease.
Research shows temptation more powerful than individuals realize
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Aug 03, 2009 |
3.9 / 5 (7) |
8
Whether it's highlighted in major news headlines about Argentinean affairs and Ponzi schemes, or in personal battles with obesity and drug addiction, individuals regularly succumb to greed, lust and self-destructive behaviors. ...
Flipping the brain's addiction switch without drugs
May 28, 2009 |
5 / 5 (5) |
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When someone becomes dependent on drugs or alcohol, the brain's pleasure center gets hijacked, disrupting the normal functioning of its reward circuitry.
Going for broke
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
May 20, 2009 |
4 / 5 (6) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Natasha Schull recalls how in the late 1990s she began observing people in Las Vegas transfixed for hours at video poker and slot machines. What, she wondered, kept them glued to machines ...
Study shows 1 in 25 deaths worldwide attributable to alcohol
Jun 26, 2009 |
5 / 5 (4) |
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Research from Canada's own Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) featured in this week's edition of the Lancet shows that worldwide, 1 in 25 deaths are directly attributable to alcohol consumption. This rise since ...
'Happy hour' gene discovery suggests cancer drugs might treat alcoholism
May 21, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
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A class of drugs already approved as cancer treatments might also help to beat alcohol addiction. That's the conclusion of a discovery in flies of a gene, dubbed happyhour, that has an important and previously unknown role ...
Addiction scientists call for end to executions for drug offenders
Jul 14, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
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The death penalty for those convicted of drug trafficking and other drug-related offences should be abolished as it is both ineffective as a policy measure and a violation of human rights.
Wastewater used to map illicit drug use
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Jul 15, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
3
A team of researchers has mapped patterns of illicit drug use across the state of Oregon using a method of sampling municipal wastewater before it is treated.
Cocaine Vaccine Shows Promise for Treating Addiction
Oct 05, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
5
(PhysOrg.com) -- Immunization with an experimental anti-cocaine vaccine resulted in a substantial reduction in cocaine use in 38 percent of vaccinated patients in a clinical trial supported by the National Institute on Drug ...
Researchers find link between nicotine addiction and autism
Nov 17, 2008 |
4.3 / 5 (3) |
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Scientists have identified a relationship between two proteins in the brain that has links to both nicotine addiction and autism. The finding has led to speculation that existing drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might ...
Plug that energy drain
Jan 26, 2009 |
4 / 5 (3) |
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January makes you want to eat potatoes, drink wine and sleep forever. The days are dark and short, seasonal depression causes fatigue and the couch is often far more inviting than the frigid outdoors.
Cocaine: Perceived as a reward by the brain?
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
May 19, 2009 |
4 / 5 (3) |
5
Cocaine is one of the oldest drugs known to humans, and its abuse has become widespread since the end of the 19th century. At the same time, we know rather little about its effects on the human brain or the mechanisms that ...
