Tag Archives: addiction


Dr. Daniel H. Lende


Addiction and Neuroanthropology




Neuroscience and Addiction


Incentive Salience and Addiction



Neuroscience and The Formation of Habits




Behavior and The Formation of Habits




Similar Research



What I Liked or Didn’t Like




Questions for Pondering


Addiction and Neuroanthropology: Querer mas y mas

Daniel H. Lende










Neuroscience and Addiction


Wanting More and More: The Neuroanthropology of Involvement


Incentive Salience and Addiction: Mediation, Environment, and Anthropology 







^^^that’s incentive salience



This incentive salience can be applied in two ways:







A Perspective on Craving

I found the article written by J. A. Brewer, “Craving to quit: Psychological models and neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness training as treatments for addictions,” to contain a useful description of addiction and craving.

One of the contributing factors to addiction is the formation of associative memories between the addiction and positive and negative affective states.  A smoker remembers that smoking when stressed helps him to relax, and that when he doesn’t smoke he feels stressed, so he is likely to keep smoking.  This in turn forms an addictive loop in which the smoker becomes stuck.

Craving is the urge to act on the desire for the addiction.  When a smoker hasn’t smoked in a while, he will begin to actively seek out a cigarette and will not feel like himself until after he has smoked.  However, it is important to note that craving is not a response to the object of addiction; rather, it is a response to the affective tone that accompanies the perceptual representation of the sensory object.  Craving is not about the actual cigarettes, it is about the feelings that accompany the cigarettes.

Stick to the Familiar

I recently read “Self-regulatory deficits associated with unpracticed mindfulness strategies for coping with acute pain” by D. R. Evans.  While mindfulness meditation has been shown to decrease pain perception, it turns out that it can actually be harmful in the short run.  Using this strategy of self regulation is unfamiliar and strange to most people, and can deplete the will-power to resist temptation.  For this reason, I think a more familiar pain-coping strategy might be better suited to addicts who are already struggling with self-regulation.  This is why I am interested to find out if the addict’s addiction can become a mantra that will help addicts tolerate pain.

Don’t Give Opium to Addicts

While reading “Addiction and the Treatment of Pain” written by P. Ziegler, I realized one potential my experiment could have to help addicts.  Most pain medications are opiate based, and these medications, while useful, can trigger relapse or new addictions in addicts.  For this reason it is important to find alternatives to treat pain in addicts.  I hypothesize that addicts might be able to harness the focus they use on their addiction to become less sensitive to pain.

Gambling is not just a game

While reading the article “Compulsive features in behavioral addictions: the case of pathological gambling” written by Nadyel-Guebaly, I had several ideas for my research proposal, the biggest of which was to include gamblers as well as alcoholics.

Even though gambling is a behavioral addiction and alcoholism is a substance use disorder, they have many similarities.  I think it would be interesting to compare a behavioral addiction to a biologically based addiction because they are both addictions, just with different bases.  However, it might be hard to isolate gamblers from alcoholics because gambling often occurs with alcoholism.

One of the primary features of substance dependence is that “use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem.” Addicts compulsively use drugs without any thought of the consequences.  This is similar to pathological gamblers, who can have a hard time quitting gambling despite negative consequences such as losing all of their money.  These compulsive behaviors are associated with obsessive thoughts over the behaviors.  Both of these addictions are ego-syntonic, meaning they feel pleasure, gratification, or relief when they commit the act.  They cannot stop their addiction, because when they are in withdrawal they feel stress and anxiety which they want to get rid of.  The easiest way to not feel withdrawal symptoms is to not be in withdrawal anymore by taking the addictive substance or doing the addictive behavior.  Gamblers feels craving and withdrawal just like alcoholics do.

There are, according to Koob and Volkow, three stages of the addiction cycle: binge/intoxication, withdrawal/negative effect, preoccupation/anticipation (craving).  There are specific brain regions associated with each of these stages.  Binge/intoxication is associated with the ventral tegmental and ventral striatum.  Withdrawal/negative affect is associated with the extended amygdala.  Preoccupation/anticipation is associated with the orbitofrontal cortexdorsal striatum, prefrontal cortex, basolater amygdala, hippocampus, and insula.  It is this stage that I am particularly interested in.  I hypothesize that the preoccupation and anticipation of the addiction might be similar to having a mantra in meditation, which is related to increased pain tolerance.

For even more biology, there are different neurotransmitter systems that contribute to substance addiction and gambling.  Serotonin contributes to behavioral inhibition, and when it is suppressed the addicts feel a euphoric high.  Dopamine is related to learning, motivation, and salience of stimuli, including pleasureful rewards for enacting the addictive behavior.  Even though gambling is a behavioral addition and alcoholism is a substance use addiction, both of them effect the brain is a similar manner.

Bells and Drool: A Way to Classically Relieve Pain

I think that the article “Classical conditioning and pain: Conditioned analgesia and hyperalgesia” written by G.Miguez might be useful for my research proposal.

This article describes how reaction to pain can actually be conditioned, or trained.  It uses the theory of classical conditioning, which was first described by Pavlov in his famous dog and bell experiment.  An unconditioned stimulus, such as food, causes an unconditioned response, such as drooling in dogs.  If a conditioned stimulus, such as the ringing of a bell, is paired with an unconditioned stimulus, then eventually the conditioned stimulus on its own will cause a conditioned response.  In this case, the ringing of a bell will cause the dog to drool even though there is no biological reason for a dog to drool at the ringing of a bell.

This is important for the regulation of pain sensitivity.  In humans, several types of stressors (unconditioned stimulus) result in an increased tolerance to pain (unconditioned response).  These stressors include, well, stress.  One example is intense physical activity (think of marathon runners who continue to run and soldiers who do not realize that they are wounded).  In animals, even a novel situation can cause a reduction in pain levels.  In humans, other stressors that result in reduced pain are loud noises, thermal stimulation, footshocks, and solving mental arithmetic problems and challenging memory tests.  So math is good for something at least.

If an initially neutral stimulus is paired with one of these stressors, it could reduce pain by acting as a conditioned stimulus.  The conditioned stimulus can be something in the environment.  However, it is important to note that not all stressors make changes in pain sensitivity in the same direction.  Some will cause less pain to be felt, others more.

As a way to relieve stress and escape from the struggles of everyday life, it is very possible that the substances of addiction are conditioned stimulus that have analgesic (pain relieving) properties.  Withdrawal comes with very negative side effects and makes those trying to quit feel miserable.  If an alcoholic who is craving a drink gives in to the temptation, he will be blissfully relieved of his withdrawal symptoms, even if it is only for a short time.  Therefore, I think it is reasonable to hypothesize that the substance becomes associated with feeling good and pain-free, and becomes a conditioned stimulus.  Maybe even the thought of the conditioned stimulus might have analgesic properties.

A Cold, Painful Task

I recently read “Effect of Brief Mindfulness Intervention on Tolerance and Distress of Pain Induced by Cold-Pressor Task” written by Xinghua Liu.

This article tested short term mindfulness meditation against distraction intervention on pain tolerance and pain intensity.  The mindfulness intervention included increasing awareness to bodily sensations and objectively accepting these experiences.  Mindfulness is accepting the pain rather than avoiding or fighting it.  The distraction intervention, which in most studies is completing hard math problems, was imagining a happy scene.  A distraction from the pain can lessen it.  Surprisingly, there was no significant difference in pain tolerance and intensity between subjects who used the mindfulness method and those who used the distraction method.  I was worried that, because mindfulness is negatively correlated with cravings and addiction and it is positively correlated with increased pain tolerance, addicts, who are not naturally mindful, will have a decreased pain tolerance.  This article shows, however, that there are different ways to tolerate pain, distraction being just as effective as mindfulness.  Even if the guided imaginings of the addicts are nothing like the process of meditation, I am interested to see if the repeated thought process involving addictions is similar to the distraction technique.  It might be good to have a control group that uses the distraction technique in my project.

Additionally, I think I will use the Cold pressor test mentioned in this article to measure pain.  The equipment is two plastic containers.  One is filled with warm water that is 37 degrees Celsius and the other with cold water and ice that is kept around 2 degrees Celsius.  To prevent the participants’ hands from touching the ice directly, the ice is wrapped in plastic and tucked away in a bottom corner of the container.  First, the participants place one of their hands in the warm container for two minutes to establish a baseline temperature.  Next, the participants move that same hand to the container that is cold.  They simply keep their hand in the water until they cannot handle the pain anymore, in which case they remove their hand from the water.  To prevent any damage to the hand, the maximum time limit is 5 minutes, but the participants are not told this.  Immediately after the procedure, the participants rate their pain experience.  This seems like a simple and effective design, and an overall good way to test what I am trying to measure.

A Guided Path Through Pain

The most important piece of information I gleamed from HC Fox’s article “Frequency of recent cocaine and alcohol use affects drug craving and associated responses to stress and drug-related cues” was the use of guided imagery.  Guided imagery involves “re-living” a recent stressful or drug-related personal event through guided imagery and recall.  I feel like this would be a good way to have the addicts in my study focus on their addiction before the pain test.  Instead of just telling the addicts to think of their addiction, this method would be standardized and repeatable, meaning the participants would all be told to imagine the same scenario.  It might be how they felt when they last indulged in their addiction, or imagining a scenario where they can indulge in their addiction all they want with no consequences.  I want to try and mimic the obsession that comes with intense addiction, and focusing in this manner might work.

Also, I liked the statistic analyses that were performed.  A linear mixed effect model is good when there are repeated measurements from the same individual.  This could be good if I have the participants do the pain test with and without the independent variable.  A T-test was performed, which is good to determine demographic and baseline drug differences.  Both of these statistical models could be used in my study.