01:830:364 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Ventral Tegmental Area, Social Defeat, Mesolimbic Pathway
Document Summary
The association between stress and addiction is well established by correlational. Addicts self-report higher levels of stress than non-addicted controls. Stress is a predisposing risk factor that contributes to the development of addiction and to addiction relapse vulnerability. The relationships between stress and addiction are mediated by their common actions on the da system and on the hpa axis. Adolescents facing a high number of recent negative life events (loss of parent, Chronic adversity primes drug use parental divorce, low parental support, physical violence and abuse, emotional abuse, neglect) show increased levels of drug use and drug abuse. Cumulative adversity (cumulative number of stressful events) prior to abusing drugs is significantly predictive of drug addiction. In animals, early life streses enhances sunsequent self administration of abused drugs. Early life stress (neonatal isolation, maternal separation, chronic restraint, repeated tailpinch, repeated foot-shock) enhances subsequent self-administration of abused drugs. Acute exposure to stress (social defeat stress, social isolation, tailpinch, foot-shock,
