00:01
Let’s talk about drug
addiction and what that
actually looks like and
why that’s happening.
00:04
So there are two
sides of the coin.
00:07
The first side is
psychological dependence.
00:09
So we know that this is impacting the
mind and that people who take these
can fall into sort
of two categories,
so first category being you’re
predisposed to psychological dependence.
00:20
So what does that
mean in English?
Well, that means that
you have been prewired due to your genes
from your parents to have the potential
to be addicted or have dependence
towards, it could be anything.
00:33
So people can have an addictive
or dependent personality
and you might know
yourself that, “Oh, when I
get into something, I
really get into it.”
It could be something as benign as when
I really get into cooking, I’m all in,
or if I start drinking coffee,
now I’m a coffee drinker,
as opposed to somebody who
might try it and say,
“I’ll have it if it’s there, but I’m
not really addicted or need it.”
Okay?
So psychologically, your
brain is prewired to have
that type of what we call
psychological disposition
or psychological characteristic.
01:03
And so, psychological dependence
is sort of one side of the coin.
01:07
Now, the other side of the coin is
actual physical dependence, and this is
irrelevant to what
your mind is doing.
01:13
This is more of
your actual body.
01:15
And so we say the definition
is refers to a state
that has produced tolerance and
withdrawal with physical symptoms.
01:21
So, again, in English what that means is
your body has now gotten accustomed
to or dependent upon that drug
and it’s actually caused
changes in the receptors,
it’s caused changes in your
physical makeup that says,
“Hey, if you don’t give me
that drug, I’m actually going
to go through withdrawals
and I’m going to express
my displeasure with the fact
that you haven’t given me my,”
you know, for exact,
“cocaine today.”
So you can have cocaine addiction,
your body changes and when you
don’t take your cocaine, it’s
withdrawal that you experience.
01:52
And a lot of times, people will
continue the drug taking behavior
not because they’re getting high
and they’re feeling amazing.
01:58
They do it because they don’t
want to suffer the withdrawal
symptoms or the physical dependence
that they’re experiencing.
02:04
So if you ask them, saying, you know, “Listen,
you know that it’s addictive. You know
that it’s killing you. You know that you’ve
lost your job, your wife, your house,
yet you still continue
to take the drug. Why?”
“Oh, man, I can’t deal with
the withdrawal symptoms.”
You know I hear
that all the time.
02:16
They say, “I take it just so I don’t
have to go through that dip.”
So that’s them
taking the drug or containing
the drug taking behavior
because they don’t want to deal
with the withdrawal symptoms
due to the physical dependence, different
than the psychological dependence.
02:31
Now, what is mediating this?
What is making us to continue
to take this drug behavior?
And we’re going to focus
on a very key pathway
and this is called the dopamine reward
pathway, which is found in the limbic system.
02:43
Okay?
So there’s a couple of structures within
the limbic system that you need to know.
02:47
We’re going to highlight
some of them here.
02:49
So typically, we have the VTA
or the ventral tegmental area,
we have the nucleus accumbens, and
we have the prefrontal cortex.
02:55
So typically, we say addiction is
linked to changes in dopamine.
02:58
I had mentioned dopamine
as an excitatory,
pleasure-reinforcing transmitter
in the nucleus accumbens.
03:05
So the nucleus accumbens belongs and is
part of this pathway of the limbic system,
which includes the
VT and the dopamine,
and collectively, this is called
the dopamine reward pathway.
03:16
So if you take a drug
and we activate the nucleus accumbens and
we cause this increase in dopamine release,
that pathway will get activated.
03:25
And like the name implies,
it’s being rewarded.
03:27
It’s quite happy.
03:27
It’s quite happy.
03:28
It’s saying, “Mmm, me like this cocaine,”
and you’re going to want to take more.
03:32
So we say that’s
behaviorally reinforcing
and it’s being reinforced by
the increase in dopamine.
03:37
Okay?
So any drug you take,
anything you do
that activates the
dopamine reward pathway
means you’ll continue to
want to do that behavior,
and if the release of the
dopamine is high enough,
it will become addictive.
03:51
So as you can see there’s a whole bunch of
different types of drugs that you can take,
each of them impacting your
brain in a different way.
03:58
At the end of the day, we’re looking
at drugs that are reinforcing.
04:02
They’re reinforcing the dopamine reward
pathway, which is found in the limbic system.