Several cognitive and neural features may make youth more predisposed to engaging in heavy alcohol and marijuana use during adolescence. Inhibition, or alcoholism symptoms impulse control, may be a key cognitive feature involved in regulating substance use 25. Inhibition is a type of executive functioning that refers to the ability to withhold a pre-potent response in order to select a more appropriate, goal-directed response 26, 27.
- The process by which removal of a stimulus such as negative feelings or emotions increases the probability of a response like drug taking.
- Quantitative MRI has shown that relatively mild yet significant structural deficits characteristic of alcoholic syndromes can occur in uncomplicated alcoholics.
- Alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence are responsible for failure in everyday life roles and high costs to society for disability and health expenditures (APA 1994; NIAAA 1997).
- Also reviewed are neuroimaging findings in animal models of alcoholism and related neurological disorders.
MRS Findings in Uncomplicated Alcoholism
A chemical substance that binds to and blocks the activation of certain receptors on cells, preventing a biological response. The process by which removal of a stimulus such as negative feelings or emotions increases the probability of a response like drug taking. Other drugs can cause lasting effects like slurred speech, confusion, tremors, or impaired motor coordination. Of course, overdosing on drugs can also be life-threatening and may even put you in a comatose state. Thankfully, the addicted brain can often be treated, and the chemistry of the brain can balance out again. Ultimately, much like other chronic diseases, addiction is preventable and treatable, but it does change one’s biology and can last a lifetime if it goes untreated.
Expectations of Changes for Long-Term Addiction Recovery
Behavioral therapies help people in drug addiction treatment modify their attitudes and behaviors related to drug use. As a result, patients are able to handle stressful situations and various triggers that might cause another relapse. Behavioral difference between drugs and alcohol therapies can also enhance the effectiveness of medications and help people remain in treatment longer.
- Addiction hijacks this system by flooding it with surges of dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of pleasure and reinforcement.
- Psychotherapy will help individuals challenge and overcome their problematic thought and behavior patterns.
- Reduction of hippocampal volume in alcoholics is reversible after short periods of abstinence (White et al. 2000).
- Some people with disorders like anxiety or depression may use drugs in an attempt to alleviate psychiatric symptoms, which may exacerbate their mental disorder in the long run, as well as increase the risk of developing addiction.43,44 Treatment for all conditions should happen concurrently.
MRS Findings in Alcoholism-Related Brain Disorders
In a prospective study of 121 youth, smaller orbitofrontal cortex volumes at age 12 predicted marijuana use by age 16 40. Findings have been replicated in other samples showing smaller frontal gray matter volume 32, 41, 42 and less cerebellar white matter volume 42 predict initiation of drinking by late adolescence, even after controlling for family history of substance use disorders 41. Reward-related subcortical brain structures also appear to be involved in initiation of substance use. In a community sample of adolescents with no prior substance use, smaller left nucleus accumbens, a brain region involved in reward and reinforcement, predicted greater substance use at a 2-year follow-up 43. Smaller volumes of the anterior cingulate, a region implicated in affective processes, self-control, and substance use, have also been found to predict later alcohol-related problems 44. White matter integrity, as measured by diffusion tensor imaging, has also been related to future substance use.
- Initial in vivo studies of the brains of alcoholics were conducted using pneumoencephalography (PEG).
- Specifically, prefrontal regions involved in executive functions and their connections to other brain regions are not fully developed in adolescents, which may make it harder for them to regulate the motivation to drink.
- This distinction provides convergent validity with postmortem findings, establishing DTI metrics as in vivo markers of white matter neuropathology.
- Although anterograde amnesia is the most obvious presenting symptom in Korsakoff patients, these individuals have additional cognitive and emotional impairments (Clark et al. 2007b; Dirksen et al. 2006).
Comparing a Sober Brain to a Brain Affected by Substance Use
Postmortem brains undergo standardized preservation procedures, enabling studies, for example, of neurochemical and genetic markers of alcoholism, by researchers throughout the world. Caricatures depict “drunkards” as stumbling and uncoordinated, yet these motor signs are, for the most part, quelled with sobriety. More detailed quantitative assessment of gait and balance using walk-a-line testing or force platform technology, however, has revealed an enduring instability in alcoholic men and women even after prolonged abstinence.