Texto
Understanding Addiction
How Addiction Hijacks the Brain
[1] Key Points
• Addiction involves craving for something intensely, loss of control over its use, and continuing
involvement with it despite adverse consequences.
• Addiction changes the brain, first by subverting the way it registers pleasure and then by corrupting
[5] other normal drives such as learning and motivation.
• Although breaking an addiction is tough, it can be done.
What causes addiction?
The word “addiction” is derived from a Latin term for “enslaved by” or “bound to.” Anyone who has
struggled to overcome an addiction – or has tried to help someone else to do so – understands why.
[10] Addiction exerts a long and powerful influence on the brain that manifests in three distinct ways:
craving for the object of addiction, loss of control over its use, and continuing involvement with it despite
adverse consequences.
For many years, experts believed that only alcohol and powerful drugs could cause addiction.
Neuroimaging technologies and more recent research, however, have shown that certain pleasurable
[15] activities, such as gambling, shopping, and sex, can also co-opt the brain.
Although a standard U.S. diagnostic manual (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Fourth Edition or DSM-IV) describes multiple addictions, each tied to a specific substance or
activity, consensus is emerging that these may represent multiple expressions of a common underlying brain
process.
(Disponível em: <http://www.helpguide.org>. Acesso em: 2 nov. 2015. Adaptado.)
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