Substance Dependence as a Neurological Disorder

Abstract

Traditionally, explanations of drug addiction adhered to a moralistic perspective. This perception, still held by many individuals and policy makers, suggests addiction is a problem to be addressed through the criminal justice system (Brown, 2011; Leshner, 1997). However, this approach has yielded little success in addressing the problem (Lee et al., 2010) and may serve to stigmatize addicts and act as a barrier to initiating treatment (Brown, 2011). Moreover, early theories of addiction grounded in learning theory have proven insufficient in explaining several key aspects of addictive behaviour (Robinson & Berridge, 1993). More recently, addiction has been viewed as disease which is characterized as a chronic relapsing disorder in which behavior is marked by a compulsion to seek and take drugs, a loss of control in limiting intake, and the emergence of a negative emotional state upon withdrawal (Koob & Le Moal, 1997). With recent advances in neuroscience and more widespread adoption of the disease model of addiction, current theories have shifted their emphasis to explaining addiction as a brain disease, subserved by varying degrees of cellular, molecular and neurocircuitry dysfunction (Koob & Le Moal, 1997; Volkow et al., 2011).