Executive Home Detox Blog

My colleague Art Zwerling is often sending academic articles to enlighten and educate addiction nurses. He recently sent two articles. I thought it would be interesting to cut and paste the abstracts as a way of identifying the serious academic research and work being done to understand the physiological component of addiction. Addiction, including alcoholism, is unique. There is a shared biological, psycho-social, and spiritual (loss of self) component to addiction and each component must be addressed for most successful recoveries.

Below is an abstract of the chapter on: The Synaptic Pathology of Drug Addiction

By: Michel C. Van den Oever, Sabine Spijker, and August B. Smit

A hallmark of drug addiction is the uncontrollable desire to consume drugs at the expense of severe negative consequences. Moreover, addicts that successfully refrain from drug use have a high vulnerability to relapse even after months or years of abstinence. In this chapter, we will discuss the current understanding of drug-induced neuroplasticity within the mesocorticolimbic brain system that contributes to the development of addiction and the persistence of relapse to drug seeking. I particular, we will focus at animal models that can be translated to human addiction. Although dopaminergic transmission is important for the acute effects of drug intake, the long- lived behavioral abnormalities associated with addiction are thought to arise from pathological plasticity in glutamatergic neurotransmission. The nature of changes in excitatory synaptic plasticity depends on several factors, including the type of drug, the brain area, and the time-point studied in the transition of drug exposure to withdrawal and relapse to drug seeking. Identification of drug-induced neuroplasticity is crucial to understand how molecular and cellular adaptations contribute to the end stage of addiction, which from a clinical perspective, is a time-point where pharma- cotherapy may be most effectively employed.

M.R. Kreutz and C. Sala (eds.), Synaptic Plasticity, 469 Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 970, DOI 10.1007/978-3-7091-0932-8_21, # Springer-Verlag/Wien 2012

And below is the abstract of the paper titled:The addicted brain craves new neurons: putative role for adult-born progenitors in promoting recovery

By: Chitra D. Mandyam and George F. Koob

Addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder associated with compulsive drug taking, drug seeking and a loss of control in limiting intake, reflected in three stages of a recurrent cycle: binge/intoxication, withdrawal/negative affect, and preoccupation/anticipation (‘‘craving’’). This review discusses the role of adult-born neural and glial progeni- tors in drug seeking associated with the different stages of the addiction cycle. A review of the current literature suggests that the loss of newly born progenitors, particularly in hippocampal and cortical regions, plays a role in determining vulnerability to relapse in rodent models of drug addiction. The normalization of drug-impaired neurogenesis or gliogenesis may help reverse neuroplasticity during abstinence and, thus, may help reduce the vulnerability to relapse and aid recovery.

Found in Trends in Neurosciences out of the Scripps Labs.

There have been a number of references to Neuroplasticity: One definition, from Medicine.net reads:

Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming newneural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons(nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in theirenvironment.

Brain reorganization takes place by mechanisms such as “axonal sprouting” in which undamaged axons grow new nerve endings to reconnect neurons whose links were injured or severed. Undamaged axons can also sprout nerve endings and connect with other undamaged nerve cells, forming new neural pathways to accomplish a needed function.

For example, if one hemisphere of the brain is damaged, the intact hemisphere may take over some of its functions. The brain compensates for damage in effect by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. In order to reconnect, the neurons need to be stimulated through activity.

Neuroplasticity sometimes may also contribute to impairment. For example, people who are deaf may suffer from a continual ringing in their ears (tinnitus), the result of the rewiring of brain cells starved for sound. For neurons to form beneficial connections, they must be correctly stimulated.

Neuroplasticity is also called brain plasticity or brain malleability.

Again, the purpose of this post is to highlight the physiological / biological research and work being done to understand addiction, and to prevent and treat addiction. Future posts will speak in more depth about the brain’s physiological response to addiction.

Executive Home Detox treats addiction and alcoholism as a disease, syndrome, or medical condition that requires medical care. Medical care may include acute medical detoxification and ongoing medication based treatment to address the high potential for relapse.