This presentation is part-6 of our Primer on Psychopharmacology and examines the basic characteristics of sensitization and its proposed role in drug addiction. While tolerance to a drug’s rewarding effects would cause it to lose effectiveness and eventually extinguish drug-taking behavior, sensitization to a drug’s rewarding effects could explain the increased motivational strength of the drug which is characteristic of an addiction.
This presentation is part-7 of our Primer on Psychopharmacology and discusses the importance of sensitization in drug addiction with special attention to relapse. It then demonstrates translational research by applying state-of-the-art theory with data from laboratory animals to estimate the period of increased vulnerability for relapse to cocaine addiction in humans.
This presentation is part-8 of our Primer on Psychopharmacology and explores the importance of conditioning effects in psychopharmacology. It opens with a brief overview of the various factors that can modify a drug’s pharmacological effects. These factors are grouped into subject variables which are intrinsic to the organism and environmental variables which are extrinsic to the organism. The presentation is joined in-progress describing a figure which illustrates how a drug’s pharmacological effects are modified by these variables to produce its composite psychopharmacological effects.
Most of the adverse effects associated with overdose from opioid-based medications could easily be prevented or rectified by simply making naloxone (Narcan) more widely available. It seems as if the medical establish is afraid that letting people know that their overdose can be quickly and effectively reversed will give patients a green light to abuse their opioid medication. Undoubtedly it will for some, but for most it should not. And there is no doubt that it would save thousands of lives!
Repeated administration of addictive drugs can result in changes in brain physiology mediating the drug's effects. Tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal reactions are three important distinguishing features often produced by chronic drug administration. This presentation describes these basic neuroadaptive effects and discusses how they are interrelated. Specific examples of physiological dependence and withdrawal reactions from opioids and psychomotor stimulants are discussed. The brief overview of neuroadaptive effects produced by addictive drugs concludes by introducing the concept of sensitization whereby cocaine's effects get stronger (not weaker) across repeated tests with the same drug dosage.
This presentation answers the age-old question of why scientists watch little rats running around in a box -- because sometimes it tells us much more, addressing a fundamentally more interesting and important question. Specifically, this mini-lecture explains the relationship between locomotor activity, brain dopamine levels, and mood and affect in humans. It lays the foundation for understanding the "Psychomotor Stimulant Theory of Addiction."
This presentation continues our primer on basic psychopharmacology discussing dose-response analysis with an emphasis on understanding efficacy and potency.
This podcast presents an informal classroom discussion of why marijuana is unlikely to ever be rescheduled on the list of controlled substances for medicinal use. The material is from a lecture regarding drug regulations set forth by the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The CSA/DEA controlled substance schedules are guided by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) technical assessment of the relative benefits and risks involved with drugs and medical devices. The FDA’s evaluation is considered the definitive opinion regarding whether a substance has proven medicinal value. The excerpt joins the impromptu presentation in progress discussing off-label prescription writing privileges. Please enjoy the discussion in the informal atmosphere in which it was intended. The presentation style is light hearted, but the content is serious and accurate to the best knowledge of the professor. It also contains a lot of information. See the listing for this presentation on our ASNet Podcast Directory for specific learning objectives.
A central theme that I’ve been teaching in my courses on drug addiction for the past 30 years is that “drug addiction is an equally opportunity affliction.” Unfortunately, this is ‘news’ to too many of my advanced undergraduate psychology students. After just a few weeks of examining the diversity of case studies and then provided with a simple model that unifies the many ‘paths to addiction’ to a single common ‘cause,’ students become excited about the ‘recent progress’ in understanding addiction and fully expect that neuroscientists will find ‘the cure’ in short order. That is, now having recognized what really drives addiction, shouldn’t scientists be able to quickly resolve this disorder which extracts such a horrific toll on the individual, on their friends and families, and on society?
Welcome to the Addiction Science Network training series intended for academic and professional listeners seeking advanced training in the scientific study of drug addiction. These presentations provide the foundation for a better understanding drug addiction by systematically building the necessary background and by presenting the fundamental concepts for a comprehensive theory of addiction.
This presentation introduces some of the terms and concepts in psychopharmacology necessary to build a foundation for understanding drug addiction.
This presentation continues a discussion of the essential concepts for understanding drug addiction specifically describing motivational toxicity, the perceptions of "free will" and "loss of control," and addressing why drug addiction should be considered a distinct diagnostic category and not considered a type of obsessive compulsive disorder. It concludes with a brief description of why we focus our initial study on prototypic addictive drugs.
Dr. Phil and other talk show 'psychologists' promote common misconceptions about drug addiction which may do a considerable disservice to the field. The quest for ratings points combined with the public's seemingly insatiable desire to see psychodrama played out on television perpetuate myths and misunderstandings about drug addiction. The sad truth is that "addiction as a brain disease" just doesn't fill out a 60-minute program nor boost popularity with audiences.
The terms drug dependence and drug addiction are often used interchangeably, but this practice leads to confusion among professionals regarding the diagnostic implications of these terms and also contributes to misunderstanding the underlying causes of substance use. This presentation briefly discusses why it is important to distinguish between these terms often used interchangeably in the field of drug addiction.
This podcast is a full-length (around 1 hour), live lecture from Dr. Michael Bozarth’s PSY451 course on Drug Addiction (State University of New York at Buffalo). It is provided as a pedagogic aid to enrolled students in that course and as a public service to others who may find the material useful. Please keep in mind that this lecture is supported by printed text, study guides, and slides that will not be available to the general public until after the book is published. (The anticipated publication date is spring 2013.) Also be advised that this first publically released lecture is three weeks into the academic course. The download is large (length: 59.6min; file size: 54.6MB), so the presentation is probably best viewed as streaming audio from the podomatic.com website. Note that the online Podomatic player can be paused by pressing the Anpu (Egyptian god of the dead) logo usually found on the upper left-hand side of the screen. Feedback and “followers” on the Podomatic.com website are appreciated and encourage further public release of this ‘raw’ lecture material. For anyone wishing to cite this material, the reference should be to M.A. Bozarth, PSY451 live lecture presentation (recorded 20 September 2012), or to Bozarth, M.A. Fundamentals of Drug Addiction: A Psychobiological Approach (anticipated publication spring 2013). Apologies for not being able to release the slides at this time, but the book needs to be formally published before the supporting materials are placed in public view. Please be advised that this presentation is generally unedited and hence subtitled “Bozarth raw and uncensored live at UB” not because of obscene content or language but because of its free-flowing, high-energy, informal presentation style designed to supplement the formal written material for this academic course. Warning: Do not listen to while driving or operating heavy machinery.
The terms drug abuse and drug addiction are often used interchangeably, but there are in fact important differences in what these terms mean. Not only are the factors causing these two cases of substance misuse frequently distinct, but the treatments for drug abuse and drug addiction usually demand focus on quite different factors. For example, comorbid disorders play a much more important role in determining cases of drug abuse than they do in drug addiction which is primarily determined by disturbances in normal brain chemistry and function. Keeping this important distinction in mind helps avoid many of the disagreements which often occur between academics and clinicians and even amongst academics themselves.
In this podcast we attempt to explain using over 25 words why addiction can't be explained in less than 25 words. The same principle applies to explanations of most other behaviors. Academics and workers in the behavioral sciences may find this podcast helpful in explaining to their friends and colleagues why quick and easy explanations of behavior just don't work. We consider this required listening for those who don't have time to systematically review our other podcasts before asking questions about the causes of drug addiction.
The new FDA guidelines will likely further restrict who receives opioid-based medications leaving millions of chronic pain sufferers without adequate medication. Patients deserve to receive their pain-relieving medication without everyone being looked upon as a potential addict. The unfounded hysteria and sensationalistic 'scientific' papers published from time-to-time need to quit exaggerating the problem for the sake of another publication and to quit marginalizing these patients who are already suffering considerably.
This podcast briefly discusses the various characteristics of an addiction that are often used to define this condition. It argues that the primary characteristics that usually serve to define addiction unnecessarily complicate its definition and that a concise, 25-word-or-less definition of addiction suffices. The ASNet definition focuses on a single defining attribute -- the motivational strength of the drug -- from which the other characteristics of an addiction can be easily deduced using simple cause-effect logic. The primary learning objectives of this podcast are to: 1. Explain why our succinct definition of addiction is sufficient for most purposes, and 2. Discuss briefly some of the other characteristics of an addiction
This podcast serves as a general introduction to the study of addiction and is a prelude for the scientific analysis of addictive behavior discussed in later podcasts. The primary learning objectives for this podcast are to: 1. Learn that addiction is a behavioral syndrome which may or may not be accompanied by physical dependence on the drug; 2. Learn about prototypic addictive drugs and their role in studying drug addiction; 3. Learn about the motivational hierarchy important in normal and in addictive behavior; 4. Learn about motivational toxicity and the two components that can create this condition; and 5. Learn what two features distinguish addiction from normal behavior and thus reinforce the notion of addiction as a behavioral syndrome.