A Historical Analysis of Addiction. Overeating as Addictive as Smoking, Cocaine. Clinically Obese, Cocaine Addicts Have Similar Brain Scans.
Q&A with Gene M. Heyman. FOR YEARS, THE enlightened - and widely held - view of addiction has been that it is a disease.
Chronic drug abusers, for example, are physiologically compelled to continue their self-destructive behavior. They often have a genetic predisposition toward addiction, and their drug abuse results in biochemical changes in the body. Addicts need help if they are to be saved. But in a new book from Harvard University Press, the psychologist Gene M.
Rat Park. Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s (and published in 1980) by Canadian psychologist Bruce K.
Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. Study links hormone to addiction, risk-taking. Selective Brain Lesion Results in Loss of Drug Addiction : Pure. The American Journal of Psychiatry has this very interesting case, but first you should know some background.
Alcohol and Drugs History Society: Addiction. Coffee as a substitute for alcohol in 19th-century Norway (article) Ole-Jørgen Skog, "Studying Cultural Change: Were the Changes in Alcohol and Coffee Consumption in the Nineteenth Century a Case of Beverage Substitution," Acta Sociologica 49/3 (September 2006): 287-302.
Evidence from Norway. Posted by David Fahey on October 23, 2010 at 08:48 PM in Addiction, Alcohol (general), Coffee, Norway | Permalink. Vaccines may help smokers kick addiction. A vaccine to help smokers kick nicotine addiction isn't yet available, but drug companies have advanced three competing versions to human clinical trials – including one being offered on an experimental basis to Portland-area smokers.
Oregon Health & Science University is one of 22 medical centers enrolling smokers in final-phase testing of a candidate vaccine called NicVAX. Effective medications for smoking cessation have been around for awhile, but some researchers believe vaccines will bring significant advantages. Medication such as Chantix and Zyban work by acting on brain pathways.
That means anti-smoking medications can produce central nervous system side effects that limit the usable dosage. Vaccines get around the problem because they target nicotine rather than brain receptors. Ideally, a vaccine would block cravings for several months, but it’s not yet clear how often smokers would require injections to maintain a vigilant enough antibody response. Alcohol's Neolithic Origins: Brewing Up a Civilization - SPIEGEL. It turns out the fall of man probably didn't begin with an apple.
More likely, it was a handful of mushy figs that first led humankind astray. Here is how the story likely began -- a prehistoric human picked up some dropped fruit from the ground and popped it unsuspectingly into his or her mouth. The first effect was nothing more than an agreeably bittersweet flavor spreading across the palate. Did a thirst for beer spark civilization? - Features, Archaeolog. According to archaeologist Patrick McGovern this may have been the case when early man decided to start farming. Why humans turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture could be the result of our ancestors’ simple urge for alcoholic beverages. “Alcohol provided the initial motivation,” said McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.
“Then it got going the engine of society.” As one of the leading experts on the study of ancient alcoholic brews, McGovern has found evidence showing that early man was making the beverage as far back as 9,000 years ago. Obsessed With the Internet: A Tale From China. The camp in Qihang promised to cure children of so-called Internet addiction, an ailment that has grown into one of China’s most feared public health hazards.
Illustration: Mark Weaver; background image: Getty; Sinopix On a hot afternoon in August, a mother, father, and son climbed into their car and set out for the Qihang Salvation Training Camp in rural China. The facility was only a half hour from their hotel in Nanning, but the drive felt much longer to Deng Fei and Zhou Juan. In the backseat, their son, Deng Senshan, said almost nothing the entire way. Stress and Substance Abuse: A Special Report After the 9/11 Terr.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., people across the country and abroad are struggling with the emotional impact of large-scale damage and loss of life, as well as the uncertainty of what will happen next.
These are stressful times for all and may be particularly difficult times for people who are more vulnerable to substance abuse or may be recovering from an addiction. For example, we know that stress is one of the most powerful triggers for relapse in addicted individuals, even after long periods of abstinence. MDMA (Ecstasy) Ecstasy What is Ecstasy (MDMA)?
The American Heritage Dictionary defines ecstasy as "intense joy or delight. " Despite its peppy name, the illegal drug ecstasy can damage nerve cells in the brain. A History of Addiction. Dani Molintas who writes for PCIJ has written an excellent history of addiction. What the public and medical communities believe and how those ideas about the nature of addiction have changed over time. This article at PCIJ about addiction was based on what Dani wrote. Dani has sent me her unedited copy and I have taken the liberty to edit it to focus on the history of addiction. There is a lot of material here that was not included in the PCIJ article. So without further adoo: THERE IS NO dearth of literature chronicling the dangers of addiction, particularly to drugs and alcohol: Parents who abuse and neglect their children often alcoholics or drug dependents. These dangers have been noted by authorities such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as a global problem.
In the bigger picture, such abuse is blamed for broken families and weakened communities, lost wages and soaring health care costs. Drug cartels undermine governments and corrupt legitimate businesses. Addiction: The Biological Mechanisms of Addiction. Biochemical Addiction Among the numerous definitions for addiction, there lies yet another to define it from a biochemical perspective. Milkman (1983) defines it as " self-induced changes in neurotransmission that result in social problem behaviors. " This definition encompasses the psychological, biochemical and social aspects of addictive processes. DSM-5 opens the diagnostic door to ‘Internet Addiction’ - Todd E. Image by mandiberg via Flickr Big news today in the the mental-health world. The American Psychiatric Association finally made public, after years of behind the scenes work by hundreds of people, a draft of new diagnostic criteria.
Slated for release in 2012, the DSM-5 will be the ”bible” for clinicians and insurers alike. And for everyone else?