Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Face Addiction
Published in Sandra Rasmussen, Developing Competencies for Recovery, 2023
According to the report, repeated use of alcohol, other drugs, or addicting behaviors “hijacks” the brain, changing the normal functions of brain circuits involved in pleasure (the reward systems), learning, stress, decision making, and self-control. Three main circuits in the brain are involved in addiction: the basal ganglia, extended amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. Use (intoxication) produces a surge of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the region of the brain called the basal ganglia and people feel pleasure. With repeated use, the brain associates the rewarding high with cues in the individual’s life: persons, places, and things. The extended amygdala controls our stress response. Withdrawal is the distress people experience when they are not using. Use is the only way “to spell relief.” The pre-frontal cortex governs decision-making, judgment, and impulse control. However, the prefrontal cortex is disrupted in individuals with addiction. Craving is the preoccupation with anticipation of reward from drinking, using, gambling, or other addictive behavior. Self-control is compromised; cues dominate, and people return to active addiction. This is relapse. The intensity of symptoms and progression vary; a person may go through the cycle over months, weeks, or several times a day. As the cycle continues, addiction severity increases with greater physical and psychological harm. See Figure 2.1 areas of the human brain that are especially important in addiction from Facing Addiction in America, pp. 2–5.
Basal Forebrain Organization: An Anatomical Framework for Motor Aspects of Drive and Motivation
Published in Peter W. Kalivas, Charles D. Barnes, Limbic Motor Circuits and Neuropsychiatry, 2019
Lennart Heimer, George F. Alheid, Daniel S. Zahm
The extended amygdala receives a highly differentiated cortical input from allocortical, periallocortical and proisocortical areas in the temporal and frontal lobes. Multisensory input also reaches both components of the extended amygdala via the basolateral complex (lateral, basolateral, and basomedial nuclei) of the amygdala, as well as from olfactory amygdaloid territories. In a sense, the extended amygdala emerges as a system of crucial importance for integrating autonomic, endocrine, and somatomotor responses within a motivational context. An important issue for individuals investigating the functions of the extended amygdala is the question whether individual behaviors are organized in a distributed fashion throughout this complex structure, or whether discrete subterritories subserve some specific functions. This problem has in general not been the subject of systematic investigations, but evidence from studies of sexual and parental behavior suggests very similar roles for the medial amygdala and the medial bed nucleus of stria terminalis.134,226,227
DSM 5 SUD Criterion 11 Withdrawal
Published in Joan Ifland, Marianne T. Marcus, Harry G. Preuss, Processed Food Addiction: Foundations, Assessment, and Recovery, 2017
Joan Ifland, H. Theresa Wright
In addition to resetting the brain’s reward system, repeated exposure to the dopamine-enhancing effects of most drugs leads to adaptations in the circuitry of the extended amygdala in the basal forebrain. These adaptations result in increases in a person’s reactivity to stress and lead to the emergence of negative emotions (Davis, Walker, Miles, & Grillon, 2010; Jennings et al., 2013). This antireward system is fueled by the neurotransmitters involved in the stress response, such as corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and dynorphin, which ordinarily help to maintain homeostasis. However, in the addicted brain, the antireward system becomes overactive, giving rise to the highly dysphoric phase of drug addiction that ensues when the direct effects of the drug wear off or the drug is withdrawn and to the decreased reactivity of dopamine cells in the brain’s reward circuitry (Volkow, Koob, & McLellan, 2016).
Neuromodulation with percutaneous electrical nerve field stimulation is associated with reduction in signs and symptoms of opioid withdrawal: a multisite, retrospective assessment
Published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2018
The external ear contains branches of cranial nerves that project to the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) (28,29) which communicates with other brain structures involved in autonomic control and pain including the amygdala.(30,31). The extended amygdala has been shown to play an important role in not only fear conditioning and pain processing, but also in processing the negative emotional state of withdrawal.(32–34). Unpublished data from our laboratory using extracellular recordings from single cells in the rat amygdala before and during neurostimulation with the BRIDGE device showed a 65% reduction in the baseline firing of neurons in the central nucleus of the amygdala and a 56% decrease in response to somatic stimulation after just 15 minutes.(35) This suggests a possible mechanism involving neuromodulation of limbic structures that could help alleviate symptoms of withdrawal and offer a noninvasive, drug free alternative.
Developing the theory of the extended amygdala with the use of the cupric-silver technique
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2023
Soledad de Olmos, Alfredo Lorenzo
The contribution of de Olmos’s work paved roads for many who came afterward. The most important studies appeared as chapters in books rather than as research reports. The A-Cu-Ag technique in the hands of Neuroscience Associates, Inc., and other laboratories has made numerous contributions to research. To this day, the concept of the extended amygdala contributes to the anatomy of the basal forebrain and still captures the attention of basic and clinical neuroscientists. The various components of the extended amygdala are structured to generate endocrine, autonomic, and somatomotor aspects of emotional and motivational states that are relevant for behavioral sciences and psychopharmacology, and for those interested in the biology of neuropsychiatric disorders and drug abuse.
The controlling role of nitric oxide within the shell of nucleus accumbens in the stress-induced metabolic disturbance
Published in Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry, 2021
Yasaman Husseini, Alireza Mohammadi, Gila Pirzad Jahromi, Gholamhossein Meftahi, Hedayat Sahraei, Boshra Hatef
The nucleus accumbens, (NAc), as one of the most important structures of forebrain, plays an important role in the natural rewards, like eating and drinking behaviour, as well as the pharmaceutical rewards. According to the immuno-histochemical and morphometric studies, the nucleus is comprised from two distinct compartments namely the shell part and core. The shell part also serves as one of the extended amygdala consists which corporates as a link between reward and motivation. Cytoarchitector studies indicated that shell part has many nerve fibres and few cells (Lopez et al.2008). Dopaminergic terminals reach NAc from ventral tegmental area (VTA), also glutaminergic terminals reach NAc shell part from other brain parts such as the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, thalamus and amygdala. There is also an orexinergic type of peptidergic relationship between the lateral hypothalamus and this part of the NAc (Sofiabadi et al.2014). There is a small number of neurons in this part including small GABAergic interneurons (Afanas' ev et al.2000). In addition, this part of the NAc is part of an operating system called the extended amygdala, which, along with the central nucleus of the amygdala and several other compartement, plays an important role in the instrumental conditioning and the emergence of the emotional part of addiction (Di Chiara 1999). Besides that, this part has a significant role in responding to stress (Kalivas and Duffy 1995). Previous studies have indicated that stress causes neural remodelling and enhances the activity of this part of the nervous system by the stimulation of the glutamate and GABAergic neuronal circuits in different parts of the amygdala, including the central nucleus (Singewald et al.2000). Due to the important connections between the core of the amygdala and the shell part of the NAc, these effects are transmitted to this nucleus, and, on the other hand, any manipulation of the NAc shell part might affect the activities of the “expanded amygdala” (Groenewegen et al.1999, Jackson and Moghaddam 2001). It is shown that, the activity of the glutamate system in the shell part of NAc mediated via it’s ionotropic receptor, N-methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) receptors. One of the most important intermediates which is activated through the stimulation of NMDA receptors and is at least responsible for some effects of glutamate (Osanloo et al.2015) is nitric oxide (NO). The NO is generated as the result of Ca+2 entry into the neurons because of the activity of NMDA glutamate receptors and the activation of the nitric oxide synthase in the neuronal cytoplasm (Wolf et al.1994). Some investigators believed that, it is considered as a neurotransmitter which can affect both the pre and post-synaptic neurons (Hall 2015).