Addiction is a field for the better part of the decade that has been unknown. Stigmas surrounding addiction have fueled individuals to feel isolated and lost on how to find help within society. When addiction reaches a point of helplessness many families look to rehabilitation centers and step based programs. These programs have a success rate that varies and many individuals relapse finding themselves in the same addictive behavior.
Addiction not only is harmful to the individual struggling with the addiction but also affects the greater society itself. This substance abuse issue in the United States is a public health issue. Specifically looking at United States veterans, if men or women in service become addicted their rate of suicide or self harm increases exponentially. (Nohnert et.al, 2017). So what are we doing as a society to protect those that serve us? How as a society can we support those who suffer from this addiction disorder?
New research shines a bright light on how we redefine addiction behaviors and tendencies creating a pathway to potentially help those struggling with addiction. The nucleus accumbens is part of the mesolimbic reward pathway during the most recent study and research is showing through addictive patterns it is malleable and experiences neuroplastic changes. Meaning the brain physically changes in response to using addictive substances. Scientists have implanted a charged mechanism into the brain in rats and using deep brain stimulation, scientists have been able to stimulate the same feeling an addict would experience but without taking the harmful substance. (Wang, 2018) This transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) releases the same dopaminergic effect as substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine and other addictive substances. (Vaughn , 2020) This same deep brain stimulation has been used to help with disorders such as Pakrinsons, Tourette's syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder with great results of improvement. Although this research is just beginning on humans, it shows that addictive behaviors can no longer be solely blamed on an individual and their moral character. The brain is changed through addictive habits making breaking an addiction an extremely difficult task for any type of person.
The research is still incredibly new as they are still understanding the symptoms of withdrawal, craving that comes with any of these deep brain stimulations and how to time the stimulation of the pathway. However, I am incredibly hopeful that this will enhance the research of addiction and fuel future studies of understanding an incredibly vulnerable population exists in many societies all over the world.
Sources:
Bohnert, K. M., Ilgen, M. A., Louzon, S., McCarthy, J. F., & Katz, I. R. (2017). Substance use disorders and the risk of suicide mortality among men and women in the US Veterans Health Administration. Addiction (Abingdon, England), 112(7), 1193–1201. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13774
Vaughn R. Steele. (2020). Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as an Interventional Tool for Addiction. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.592343
The topic of addiction is very interesting. What’s even more interesting is how we can alter behavior through electrical impulses generated via the implantation of electrodes in the brain. In a very crude sense, this sounds to me like refined “electro-shock therapy,” a connotatively negative procedure. This led me to ponder whether there are even more applications to which this technology is being applied, specifically mental disorders. I know you had mentioned deep brain stimulation’s involvement in disorders such as Parkinson’s, Tourette's syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive disorder; but it also seems that DBS is being recommended by some, including a group of neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and one practicing ethicist/neurologist, to be an effective therapeutic option for selected patients with otherwise intractable mental illness (Schläpfer et al., 2021).
ReplyDeleteSchläpfer, T. E., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Synofzik, M., Visser-Vandewalle, V., Voges, J., & Coenen, V. A. (2021). Invasive Brain Stimulation in the Treatment of Psychiatric Illness: Proposed Indications and Approaches. Deutsches Aerzteblatt International, 118(3), 31–36. https://doi-org.dml.regis.edu/10.3238/arztebl.m2021.0017
Hey Katie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your article!
I am going to go slightly off topic (don't hate me for it, sorry) as your article reminded me of a possible treatment for addition called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR (Littel et al., 2016).
EMDR has been well known for its effectiveness in treating PTSD (Schäfer et al., 2017). In EMDR, the patient is asked to hold an unpleasant memory in mind while eye movement is induced by having the patient follow the side-to-side motion of a finger or automated pendulum (Littel et al., 2016). This is repeated until the patient reports minimal distress levels triggered by the memory (Littel et al., 2016).
One article took EMDR a step further to determine if EMDR could be a plausible treatment option for addiction. The study recruited 89 female students around the age of 21. The students were asked to select three food items they craved the most at the time of the study. Participants then picked their favorite of the three (the food they craved the most in that moment). They were asked to vividly picture the food and then were asked to participate in rapid eye movement. The control group was asked to vividly picture the food and were asked to keep their eyes stationary. Afterwards, the students were asked to rate their relative cravings of the food they pictured. The study found that a brief session of EMDR significantly reduced craving of food evoked by food-related items compared to the control group (Littel et al., 2016). The study indicates that it may be possible to use repeated EMDR therapy to help decrease craving of substances and may help treat addiction (Littel et al., 2016).
Littel, M., van den Hout, M. A., & Engelhard, I. M. (2016). Desensitizing Addiction: Using Eye Movements to Reduce the Intensity of Substance-Related Mental Imagery and Craving. Frontiers in psychiatry, 7, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2016.00014
Schäfer, I., Chuey-Ferrer, L., Hofmann, A., Lieberman, P., Mainusch, G., & Lotzin, A. (2017). Effectiveness of EMDR in patients with substance use disorder and comorbid PTSD: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMC psychiatry, 17(1), 95. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-017-1255-9