Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Incentive Sensitisation
Model
- 1. INTRODUCTION
- Most experiment with recreational drugs - vast majority,
this does not raise serious concen
- Small group - casual use leads to
compulsive patterns of abuse with
detrimental consequences
- Incentive sensitisation theory offers promising explanation of how drug-induced
alterations is psych functions can cause a transition to addiction, and pose major risks
for relapse
- 2. TRANSITION FROM CAUSAL USE TO ADDICTION
- Changes outlast other changes associated with tolerance and withdrawal
- Over ast 20 years - increasing recognition that drugs change
brain of addicts in complex and persistent ways
- Important to identify these brain changes and features that make some
individuals especially susceptible to transition
- 3. INCENTIVE SENSITISATION, HYPERSENSITIVITY & BIASES
- Robinson & Berridge (1993)
- Most important change is a 'sensitisation' or
hypersensitivity to the motivation effects of
drugs and drug-associated stimuli
- Produces attentional processing biases towards
such stimuli and pathological motivation for
drugs
- i.e. compulsive 'wanting' - 'wanting' in quotation marks to refer to
activation of incentive salience processes
- Combined with executive control dysfunction
- 4. NEURAL SYSTEMS
- Strong cravings for drugs is controleld by a sensitised neural
system
- System normally functions to link incentive salience to reward cues
- System consists of mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic neurons that
connect to ventral tegmental area with the nucleus accumbens,
neostriatum, amygdala, central pallidum, and prefrontal cortex
- Transforms ordinary stimuli (e.g. cues associated with reward) into incentive stimuli, making
them motivationally attractive and able to trigger and urge to obtain reward
- 5. EFFECT OF DRUGS ON THIS SYSTEM
- System is highly adaptive under
normal conditions - food and sex -
ensure survival and procreation
- System can be sensitised by drugs - taken
repeatedly and at high doses, if individual
is particularly susceptible
- System then reacts more powerfully to the drug and related cues
- When addict encounters these cues, the urge to take the drug is amplified -
creates a vicious cycle as drug abuse and sensitised systems enhance each
other - difficult to break cycle
- 6. 'WANTING' vs. 'LIKING'
- Ability of a cue to trigger a momentary
desire to obtain a reward ('wanting') is
independent of the rewarding effect
('liking')
- 'Wanting' and 'liking' of the drug are linked in the initial
phases of drug use, but only 'wanting' becomes
sensitised and increases development of addiction
- 7. 'WANTING' STUDIES & ANIMAL STUDIES
- Robinson & Berridge (2003) - Drug use amplifies 'wanting'
responses, blackade of dopamine has opposite effect
- Studies using operant running/progressive
ratio - animals pre-treated with
amphetamine or cocaine are more motivated
to work for the drug
- 8. SELF-REPORTS OF 'WANTING'
&HUMAN STUDIES
- Elevated dopamine levels induced by amphetamine/L-DOPA increase
self-reported ratings of 'wanting' but not 'liking' (Liggins et al., 2012)
- Decreased levels of dopamine diminish self-reported cocaine-induced
'wanting' but not 'liking' (Leyton et al., 2005)
- Self-reported 'wanting' shown to predict consumption
behaviour in at-risk drinkers (Ostafin et al., 2010)
- 9. DRUG-RELATED CUES
- Presence of cues predicting drug availability associated with sensitised
responding,, while absence is associated with absence of sensitised
responding
- Increased striatal function when salient cues present during teseting subjects at risk
of addiction, and drug users, while decreased striatal function when drug-related
cues were absent (Casey et al., 2013)
- 10. BLUNTED RESPONSES TO
NATURAL REWARDS & CUES
(RELAPSE)
- Diminished mesocorticolimbic activation to
non-addiction rewards/cues obrserved in
cocaine abusers, alcoholics, and detoxified
alcoholics
- Also seen in animals exposed to cocaine - prefer cocaine
over novelty and even over maternal behaviour and food
(Noel et al., 2013)
- 11. CONCLUSION
- Addiction involves drug-induced changes in different brain circuits -
leads to complex changes in behaviour and psych fucntion
- Incentive sensitisation combines with defects in cognitive executive functioning - loss of inhibitory
control over behaviour with sensitisation of motivational impulses to obtain and drug = potentially
disastrous combination