The addicted brain.

• Autores: Eric J. Nestler, Robert C. Malenka
• Localización: Scientific American, ISSN 0036-8733, Vol. 290, Nº. 3, 2004, págs. 78-85
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article discusses how the brain functions in regards to addiction. But something happens after repeated exposure to drugs of abuse--whether heroin or cocaine, whiskey or speed. Neurobiologists have long known that the euphoria induced by drugs of abuse arises because all these chemicals ultimately boost the activity of the brain's reward system: a complex circuit of nerve cells, or neurons, that evolved to make us feel flush after eating or sex--things we need to do to survive and pass along our genes. Repeated exposure to these drugs induces long-lasting adaptations in the brain's chemistry and architecture, altering how individual neurons in the brain's reward pathways process information and interact with one another. Drugs of abuse hit various targets in the brain, but all directly or indirectly enhance the amount of dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens, thereby promoting addiction.