Rudy Garns's Library tagged addiction →  View Popular, Search in Google

But we can — and I think we must — turn this on its head. The addict's distorted conception of him or herself — the addict's willful turning away from family, from commitment, from value, from choice, from freedom; the addict's screening off of the world that is our true home — this brings out precisely what is so false and wrongheaded in the conception of self that the new neuroscience just takes for granted.

addiction

...the transition to addiction could result from a persistent impairment of synaptic plasticity in a key structure of the brain.

addiction plasticity brain grue

Heard the one about the psychiatrist, the Supreme Court judge and the philosopher who walked in to a radio studio...? Join Natasha Mitchell and guests in a roundtable interrogation of how the brain sciences are changing our understanding of addiction, and the powerful consequences for notions of free will, responsibility and culpability. All In The Mind - 24 October 2009 -

addiction freewill self-control neuroethics

Scientific American

addiction cogsci

This post will look more closely at casino’s techniques to draw gamblers back to the slot chairs and the tables, focusing on both physiological aspects and engaged decision making. Ultimately, these observations will demonstrate that casinos create more than entertainment; they develop an entire compulsive experience.

addiction grue cogsci

“Near-miss” events, where unsuccessful outcomes are proximal to the jackpot, increase gambling propensity and may be associated with the addictiveness of gambling, but little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie their potency. Using a simplified slot machine task, we measured behavioral and neural responses to gambling outcomes.

addiction dopamine grue cogsci

because of reward expectancy the dopamine system is most active when we think we can control the outcome and modify our strategy next time, even if that sense of control is completely false. (Mind Hacks)

dopamine addiction grue cogsci

Jim Schnabel offers a brief essay in NatureNews on neuroscientists who are suggesting that is effectiveness of drug intervention programs is related to their strengthening of executive frontal lobe functions. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)

addiction brains neurosciene frontal-lobes cogsci

One of the mysteries of gambling is that even when we should know we're going to lose, we somehow think we're going to win. Dr. Luke Clark, from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, may have discovered one of the reasons why. Using MRI, he studied brain activity in people gambling, looking particularly at "near misses" in which a loss seems close to a win. He found that the brain activated the same reward system that is activated in a real win, despite the fact that people report that these near misses are unpleasant. (CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | February 21, 2009)

addiction brains gambling cogsci

there is no typical alcoholic and, by extension, everyone is equally susceptible to alcoholism and addiction. Unfortunately, the science of epidemiology knocks this idea for a loop.

addiction