The Science of Addiction: Understanding how substance dependency affects the brain

The Science of Addiction: Understanding how substance dependency affects the brain

Unmasking the Science of Addiction: How Substance Dependency Rewires the Brain

For much of the past century, scientists studying drugs and drug use labored in the shadows of powerful myths and misconceptions about the nature of addiction. When scientists began to study addictive behavior in the 1930s, people with an addiction were thought to be morally flawed and lacking in willpower. Those views shaped society’s responses to drug use, treating it as a moral failing rather than a health problem, which led to an emphasis on punishment rather than prevention and treatment.

Brain imaging studies from people with substance use disorders show changes in areas of the brain that are critical to judgment, decision making, learning and memory, and behavior control. Scientists believe that these changes alter the way the brain works and may help explain the compulsive and destructive behaviors of addiction.

Drugs of abuse affect the brain much more dramatically than natural rewards, such as food and social interactions. To bring stimulation down to a more manageable level, the brain must try to adapt.

One way the brain compensates is to reduce the number of dopamine receptors at the synapse. In addition, sending neurons increase their number of dopamine transporters, more quickly clearing dopamine from the synapse. These changes make the brain less responsive to the drug, but they also decrease the brain’s response to natural rewards.

Because of these changes, after the user has “come down,” they will need more of the drug next time they want to get high. This response is commonly referred to as “tolerance.” Once these changes take place, drug-seeking behavior becomes driven by habit, almost reflex.

Drugs are chemicals that produce euphoria and disrupt normal brain communication by tampering with the way neurons send, receive, and process signals. Different drugs elicit different brain responses, and they may do this by:

Mimicking the brain’s natural neurotransmitters. Drugs like heroin and marijuana imitate natural neurotransmitters and trick the brain’s receptors into activating nerve cells. As the drugs latch onto and activate neurons, they send distorted or exaggerated messages to the central nervous system.

Flooding the brain’s “reward circuit.” Drugs like methamphetamine and cocaine cause a hyper-release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in the brain’s reward system. As drugs produce a surge of dopamine, they powerfully “reinforce the connection between consumption of the drug, the resulting pleasure, and all the external cues linked to the experience. Large surges of dopamine ‘teach’ the brain to seek drugs at the expense of other, healthier goals and activities.”

Disrupting brain circuits and chemical systems that govern learning, memory, judgment, behavior, stress, and decision-making. Even when a person understands the consequences of excessive drug or alcohol use, SUD leads them to ignore these consequences in the continual pursuit of drug-induced pleasure or the desire to fend off withdrawal symptoms.

Although there’s no cure for drug addiction, treatment options can help you overcome an addiction and stay drug-free. Your treatment depends on the drug used and any related medical or mental health disorders you may have. Long-term follow-up is important to prevent relapse.

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