Addictive Disorders and Learning Principles

This flashcard set covers the clinical definitions, neurobiological frameworks, and pharmacological treatments for substance use and behavioral addictions.

Behavioral Addictions

Compulsive behaviors or impulse control disorders such as gambling, gaming disorder, and online shopping, often mediated by technology like the Internet.

Gaming Disorder

An excessive preoccupation with video gaming that is recognized as a behavioral addiction in the ICD-11.

Caffeine

Considered the most commonly used psychoactive drug in Australia, to which individuals can develop a dependence.

Nicotine

A highly addictive drug found in tobacco; on average, it takes a person approximately seven or eight attempts to quit smoking.

Route of Administration

The method by which a drug enters the body, with rates of absorption (from slowest to fastest) being ingested, smoked, snorted/under the tongue, and injected.

Addiction

A chronic and relapsing medical disorder characterized by continued substance use or behavioral engagement despite experiencing harm.

Tolerance

A process where the brain and body adapt to a substance, requiring increasing amounts or more frequent use to achieve the same effect.

GABA

The inhibitory neurotransmitter system that alcohol and benzodiazepines act upon to depress central nervous system activity.

Glutamate

The excitatory neurotransmitter system that can cause over-excitation, shakes, and lethal seizures during alcohol withdrawal once the inhibitory effects are removed.

Substance Dependence

A condition characterized by at least two out of three criteria: inability to control use, increasing priority of use over other areas, and neuroadaptation (tolerance and withdrawal).

Harmful Use

A pattern of substance use categorized by the ICD-11 as any use causing harm to the person but not reaching the full criteria for dependence.

Hazardous Use

Risky patterns of substance use that increase the risk of harm to the user or others (such as drink driving) but have not yet caused actual harm.

Nucleus Accumbens

Also known as the ventral striatum, this part of the basal ganglia is the primary reward center where drugs increase dopamine signaling.

Anhedonia

A state where rewards are no longer as pleasurable as before, often occurring during the withdrawal phase of the addiction cycle.

Dorsal Striatum

Comprising the caudate and putamen, this brain region is involved in habit formation, where substance use shifts from conscious choice to a physiological habit.

Executive Control Network

Located in the prefrontal cortex, this network governs decision-making, self-regulation, and response inhibition, and is often impaired by repeated substance use.

Interoception

The body's ability to perceive its own internal states; in addiction, this network may cause a person to perceive cravings and urges as overwhelming.

Salience and Emotion Network

Involving the amygdala and HPA axis, this network is associated with mood, stress reactivity, and the negative affect experienced during drug withdrawal.

Cue Exposure Therapy

An approach based on Pavlovian extinction where a person is exposed to environmental stimuli associated with use to weaken the triggered cravings over time.

Motivational Interviewing

A brief intervention style based on the stages of change theory (pre-contemplative, contemplative, etc.) that aims to increase an individual's internal motivation to change.

Contingency Management

A behavioral therapy approach that provides positive reinforcement, such as financial rewards or vouchers, to incentivize abstinence.

Naltrexone

An opioid partial agonist used to treat alcohol use disorder by blocking reward receptors, thereby removing the pleasurable effects of drinking.

Disulfiram

A medication that inhibits the metabolism of alcohol, leading to a buildup of acetaldehyde which causes nausea and vomiting if the user consumes ethanol.

SBIRT

A clinical model representing Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment, used to provide a stepped care approach based on an individual's level of risk.

Anxiolytic

The calming or sedative effect produced by certain substances like tobacco in specific quantities.