INTRODUCTION All addictive behaviors start as something merely pleasurable or enjoyable. However, through repetition, the brain forms a tolerance to the pleasurable activity or substance. The brain’s pleasure center then needs more stimulation to achieve the same amount of effect. What was once just a pleasurable pastime has now become a necessity to the individual. In this book by David Linden, he discusses pleasure from a biological perspective. He focuses on the brain and how it is affected by pleasure, be it from substances or by behaviors. He discusses the concept of association and its role in the development of addictions. He also talks about how addictions are partly nature and nurture.
BOOK REVIEW
Chapter 1 – Mashing the Pleasure…show more content… 38). Substances that weakly stimulate the pleasure circuit, like alcohol and cannabis, carry a smaller chance of addiction.
Addiction develops in stages starting with tolerance, then dependence, and then cravings (para. 45- 47). Then, after addicts attempt to quit, they are prone to relapses due to past-learned sensory cues, stress and drug sensitization (para. 48). Drug sensitization causes past users to become overly sensitive to the drug, therefore producing a stronger effect compared to when they first started using the drug.
According to studies Linden (2011) reviewed, he suggested that long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LDP) – key parts in memory and learning – are part of why addictions develop (para. 55-58). A study conducted at Texas A&M University administered a drug that inhibited LTP and LDP in rats before giving them cocaine. They discovered that the rats showed no particular interest in self-administering cocaine and only did so at chance intervals. In essence, the inhibition of LTP and LDP prevented learning the association between pleasure and sensory cues needed to develop an
