The motivational component of withdrawal in opiate addiction: role of associative learning and aversive memory in opiate addiction from a behavioral, anatomical and …

F Frenois, CL Moine, M Cador - Reviews in the Neurosciences, 2005 - degruyter.com
Reviews in the Neurosciences, 2005degruyter.com
SYNOPSIS A major challenge in current drug addiction research is not only to understand
the immediate effects of drugs of abuse on brain operations, but also to define at the
behavioral and neural levels how cognitive, emotional and motivational processes interact
with drug use in order to lead to this psychopathological state which defines addiction. It is
now clear that factors other than the direct effects of drugs of abuse are able to powerfully
affect drug-seeking and drug-taking behaviors. In former opiate addicts, re-exposure to …
Synopsis
A major challenge in current drug addiction research is not only to understand the immediate effects of drugs of abuse on brain operations, but also to define at the behavioral and neural levels how cognitive, emotional and motivational processes interact with drug use in order to lead to this psychopathological state which defines addiction. It is now clear that factors other than the direct effects of drugs of abuse are able to powerfully affect drug-seeking and drug-taking behaviors. In former opiate addicts, re-exposure to environmental situations previously paired with withdrawal is able to induce strong craving episodes. It has been proposed that these conditioned stimuli could be strongly involved in precipitating relapse in drug-taking behavior by re-activating the neurobiological circuits which are engaged in an unconditioned way by the withdrawal state itself, leading to a powerful aversive state relieved by drug consumption renewal. In the present review, we provide evidence from a neuropsychopharmacological viewpoint that environmental situations previously paired with the opiate withdrawal syndrome might be able to maintain drugseeking motivation. Using behavioral models
De Gruyter