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Bitter Cactus
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22170166 - 08/31/15 05:25 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Smokers technically are diseased though based on the theory addiction is a disease.
Addiction is not a disease. 
A lot of it has to do with how good of a life you have. If you have a wife, kids, family, a big house, a job ect. you are probably way less likely to get addicted. Even if you tried heroin or someone shot you up against your will you would be like fuck that noise I had other shit going on that is more important.
If you have a poor kid in the slums and all he can do for fun is shoot some meth then he is obviously gonna end up addicted. If he never tried it in the first place he would not be hooked.
Everyone probably has an addict deep down inside them, it all has to do with how good their life is, their impulsiveness, their willpower, their character really.
Didn't a bunch of american soldiers in vietnam get hooked on heroin only to come back home and get sober without much of a problem?
People can stop on their own too. Lots of alcoholics just get fed up with it and give up drinking without needing any rehab or support. I think addiction is a behavior that people need to take responsibility for instead of saying they were born with a disease. Don't shoot up crack if you don't want to be an addict.
I think addiction is really a choice. Unless someone put a gun to your head and made you shoot up heroin the first time you only have yourself to blame. That's how I look at my past addictions and I owned up to it and got over them. Once you get physically hooked on something, anyone in the world can become an addict.
-------------------- Taking acid and thinking you are a better man is a lot different then actually becoming a better man.
Edited by Bitter Cactus (08/31/15 05:27 PM)
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22170656 - 08/31/15 07:00 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
fapjack said:
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morrowasted said:
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I dunno, "chronic, progressive, and fatal"... if that's the only criteria of a disease, I guess it fits.
No. Addiction is often called a chronic, progressive, and often fatal disease, but the criteria according to which it is characterized as a disease are a result of the general medical disease model, which I outlined in my first reply:
Quote:
The disease model of medicine posits that there is an organ there is a defect in the organ there is a consistent set of symptoms associated with that defect
In addiction, the organ is said to be the brain. The defect is said to be a certain kind of neural pathology. This pathology involves glutamate pathways projecting from the cortex to the ventral tegmental area, and in active (not clean and sober) cases of addiction, a state of dopaminergic allostasis in the VTA and an excess of dopamine reuptake transporters in the nucleus accumbens. The symptoms associated with this pathology are craving for the drug, environmental triggers to use the drug, and decreased pleasure sensitivity to the drug.
Defect in this instance is entirely subjective. Can the brain and body work perfectly fine with a substance addiction? Does that definition include addiction to certain behaviors? By your definition would someone that is physically dependent on any drug be suffering from a disease?
Addiction isn't a disease. Calling it one is politicizing medicine. It's psychology, not biochemistry. It's a theory without conclusive evidence. The brain functions normal when psychologically addicted to a drug, the problem is behavior so it isn't a neurological disease it would be a behavioral one. It is also a behavioral issue than cures itself for many people as a large % of drug addicts stop at some point without any treatment at all. It's a behavioral issue for people, not the result of a pathology. Smokers and caffeine addicts don't suffer from disease, and when you word it that way your argument looses a lot of credibility.
First of all, anyone with even a passing acquaintance with neurobiology understands that the distinction between psychological and physical addiction is illusory. It is true that withdrawal from some substances can kill you, but all addictive processes are physical. It is just that for some, the primary manifestation of the addiction is an obsessive pattern of thought and behavior related to the drug.
And no, the brain does not work "perfectly fine" without the drug of choice, because of the aforementioned glutamate pathology between the VTA and the cortex. When you are hungry, for example, your body tells you that you need to eat. This takes place in the limbic system via glutamate pathways specifically associated with food consumption, and when you eat, dopamine is released, which quiets the glutamate pathways. But in an addicted brain, the prime directive is to consume the drug of choice, because the glutmate pathways associated with the consumption of that drug know that using it will release the greatest amount of dopamine. The brain can't tell that the drug is releasing dopamine in a way that doesn't contribute to survival. It "thinks" that the drugs are a survival mechanism. So whenever an addicted person is not on the drug, they are CONSTANTLY obsessing about using it. This is a BIG DEAL and has PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES even in what YOU would call only PSYCHOLOGICAL addiction: very rapid pulse rate, high blood pressure, sweating, inability to sleep, extreme anxiety, etc. You may have heard some people say that can't sleep without weed. This isn't because weed makes you sleepy; in fact, with most strains of weed, quite the opposite is true. It's because they are addicted to weed.
Characterizing smoking addiction as a disease is absolutely acceptable, in my opinion. Smoking addiction is chronic, progressive, and often fatal. Smokers obsess about the act of smoke, and smoke compulsively, even when they don't want to. Most of them smoke in the morning before they even have breakfast or take a shower. That, my friend, is addiction. It just doesn't seem "that bad" because smoking is legal and smokers don't have to steal and lie to their families and so forth in order to smoke.
Caffeine addiction is tricky. First of all, caffeine has a very unusual mechanism of action that makes the brain's association of caffeine use with the release of dopamine difficult to make. In this way, caffeine is unlikely to result in any significant degree of obsession, in most people. You will, however, notice the effects if you quit drinking it suddenly, and then you will find yourself drinking another cup. This is the definition of compulsive use, and compulsive use is the result of obsessive thought patterns, which are the defining characteristic of a brain that characterized by the disease of addiction. Just some food for thought.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: Bitter Cactus]
#22170749 - 08/31/15 07:16 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Bitter Cactus said: Smokers technically are diseased though based on the theory addiction is a disease.
Addiction is not a disease. 
A lot of it has to do with how good of a life you have. If you have a wife, kids, family, a big house, a job ect. you are probably way less likely to get addicted. Even if you tried heroin or someone shot you up against your will you would be like fuck that noise I had other shit going on that is more important.
If you have a poor kid in the slums and all he can do for fun is shoot some meth then he is obviously gonna end up addicted. If he never tried it in the first place he would not be hooked.
Everyone probably has an addict deep down inside them, it all has to do with how good their life is, their impulsiveness, their willpower, their character really.
Didn't a bunch of american soldiers in vietnam get hooked on heroin only to come back home and get sober without much of a problem?
People can stop on their own too. Lots of alcoholics just get fed up with it and give up drinking without needing any rehab or support. I think addiction is a behavior that people need to take responsibility for instead of saying they were born with a disease. Don't shoot up crack if you don't want to be an addict.
I think addiction is really a choice. Unless someone put a gun to your head and made you shoot up heroin the first time you only have yourself to blame. That's how I look at my past addictions and I owned up to it and got over them. Once you get physically hooked on something, anyone in the world can become an addict.
This is complete and total bullshit. Having been to rehab multiple times, I can tell you that addicts come from all walks of life. There are addicts from the street, yes, but there are also lawyers and city councilmen living the white picket fence lifestyle. Addiction does not discriminate. And yes, many addicts in Vietnam came home and stopped. That was because in Vietnam, heroin was the thing to do, and they were constantly killing people and being shot at. I would do heroin too. When they came home, those with diseased brains who had access to heroin continued to use it. If they didn't, but they had a diseased brain, they used something else. I lived with a man who was a heroin addict in Vietnam recently, and when he came home he didn't have access to heroin, so became an alcoholic and cocaine and later a crack user.
Yes, alcoholics can absolutely stop drinking. But the point is that they stop. People with diseased brains never find a way to moderate their drinking and drugging- it just doesn't work for them. Once they start, they find themselves using as much as they used to.
Nobody puts a gun to anyone's head, but most people don't know they have the propensity to become addicted when they start using drugs, and that is the point. EVERYONE in America uses drugs, except for Mormons and some Muslims, because everyone uses alcohol at some point in their lives. Most people get prescribed painkillers from a doctor. Many people try marijuana- that is what got me started. You can't blame a 15 year old for trying marijuana or alcohol and having a genetic predisposition to become addicted to it but not knowing it. And if you don't believe that such things exist, do some research.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/074183299390054R
http://www.jci.org/articles/view/60390
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh312/111-118.pdf
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fapjack
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22172696 - 09/01/15 06:52 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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What are the physiological symptoms an addict experiences when they don't get their drug? Are any of these actually harmful? None of them are, and the symptoms are more of an inconvenience than anything. They also subside with secession. It is not a physiological "disorder" even if it has a physiological mechanism (one that has yet to be proven as the cause of addiction). If a heroin addict has a disease, a smoker, gambler, exercise addict, adrenaline addict, and shop-a-holic suffer from the same disease. How do millions of people each year cure themselves of this disease without any treatment? Because it's a behavior not a disease... Mind over matter doesn't cure diseases, it changes behaviors. Also I think caffeine addiction is very similar to nicotine addiction, and I don't think heroin addiction is even comparable. I wasn't addicted to the high, I was addicted to being numb. I don't see how you can lump all drugs addictiveness by one mechanism.
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poke smot!
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease *DELETED* [Re: Bitter Cactus] 1
#22172735 - 09/01/15 07:10 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by poke smot!Reason for deletion: x
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fapjack
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: poke smot!]
#22172836 - 09/01/15 07:51 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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12 step programs are horse shit, though they do serve a purpose. It is a religion for drug addicts, and serves the same purpose as any other religion. They can be helpful or harmful depending on who you associate with and how much you really give a shit about staying off of drugs. Some of their doctrine is useful, some is in my opinion counterproductive. I wouldn't suggest it to anyone, and I've been to several hundred meetings. If you are lost, have no structure, no sober friends/family, and no direction it can be a good place to go. I can't even begin to comprehend what it would be like if my parents were dope fiends so obviously my opinion is obviously limited to my own biases.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173274 - 09/01/15 09:48 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
fapjack said: What are the physiological symptoms an addict experiences when they don't get their drug? Are any of these actually harmful? None of them are, and the symptoms are more of an inconvenience than anything. They also subside with secession. It is not a physiological "disorder" even if it has a physiological mechanism (one that has yet to be proven as the cause of addiction). If a heroin addict has a disease, a smoker, gambler, exercise addict, adrenaline addict, and shop-a-holic suffer from the same disease. How do millions of people each year cure themselves of this disease without any treatment? Because it's a behavior not a disease... Mind over matter doesn't cure diseases, it changes behaviors. Also I think caffeine addiction is very similar to nicotine addiction, and I don't think heroin addiction is even comparable. I wasn't addicted to the high, I was addicted to being numb. I don't see how you can lump all drugs addictiveness by one mechanism.
You can lump the addictive nature of all drugs by one mechanism because they all work by the same mechanism, the dopaminergic reward circuit between the VTA and the nucleus accumbens.
I just described the physiological symptoms to Bitter Cactus. Read the entire reply I made to him and digest it:
Quote:
First of all, anyone with even a passing acquaintance with neurobiology understands that the distinction between psychological and physical addiction is illusory. It is true that withdrawal from some substances can kill you, but all addictive processes are physical. It is just that for some, the primary manifestation of the addiction is an obsessive pattern of thought and behavior related to the drug.
And no, the brain does not work "perfectly fine" without the drug of choice, because of the aforementioned glutamate pathology between the VTA and the cortex. When you are hungry, for example, your body tells you that you need to eat. This takes place in the limbic system via glutamate pathways specifically associated with food consumption, and when you eat, dopamine is released, which quiets the glutamate pathways. But in an addicted brain, the prime directive is to consume the drug of choice, because the glutmate pathways associated with the consumption of that drug know that using it will release the greatest amount of dopamine. The brain can't tell that the drug is releasing dopamine in a way that doesn't contribute to survival. It "thinks" that the drugs are a survival mechanism. So whenever an addicted person is not on the drug, they are CONSTANTLY obsessing about using it. This is a BIG DEAL and has PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES even in what YOU would call only PSYCHOLOGICAL addiction: very rapid pulse rate, high blood pressure, sweating, inability to sleep, extreme anxiety, etc. You may have heard some people say that can't sleep without weed. This isn't because weed makes you sleepy; in fact, with most strains of weed, quite the opposite is true. It's because they are addicted to weed.
Characterizing smoking addiction as a disease is absolutely acceptable, in my opinion. Smoking addiction is chronic, progressive, and often fatal. Smokers obsess about the act of smoke, and smoke compulsively, even when they don't want to. Most of them smoke in the morning before they even have breakfast or take a shower. That, my friend, is addiction. It just doesn't seem "that bad" because smoking is legal and smokers don't have to steal and lie to their families and so forth in order to smoke.
Caffeine addiction is tricky. First of all, caffeine has a very unusual mechanism of action that makes the brain's association of caffeine use with the release of dopamine difficult to make. In this way, caffeine is unlikely to result in any significant degree of obsession, in most people. You will, however, notice the effects if you quit drinking it suddenly, and then you will find yourself drinking another cup. This is the definition of compulsive use, and compulsive use is the result of obsessive thought patterns, which are the defining characteristic of a brain that characterized by the disease of addiction. Just some food for thought.
Also, it is not "mind over matter" that cures diseases. It is time and re-association of positive stimuli over matter that allows for recovery from addiction.
If you don't want to think of addiction as a disease, fine, don't. But at least understand that addicts suffer from a certain kind of neural pathology. Read about the neural pathology I have discussed. Of course, meth and heroin addicts have a much worse case of this neural pathology than caffeine addicts and shopaholics. But all of these people are suffering from more or less the same kind of pathology. It is their primitive "lizard" brain overriding their rational "primate/human" brain, dictating their ability to make good/rational decisions. It's really not all that complicated.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173279 - 09/01/15 09:50 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
fapjack said: 12 step programs are horse shit, though they do serve a purpose. It is a religion for drug addicts, and serves the same purpose as any other religion. They can be helpful or harmful depending on who you associate with and how much you really give a shit about staying off of drugs. Some of their doctrine is useful, some is in my opinion counterproductive. I wouldn't suggest it to anyone, and I've been to several hundred meetings. If you are lost, have no structure, no sober friends/family, and no direction it can be a good place to go. I can't even begin to comprehend what it would be like if my parents were dope fiends so obviously my opinion is obviously limited to my own biases.
The primary advantage of 12 step groups is that they teach people to rely on other people for guidance about decision making. I agree with you that they could drop the God stuff and function just as well.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22173293 - 09/01/15 09:54 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Excellent post poke smot!
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fapjack
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22173308 - 09/01/15 09:58 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I've read up about it, and there isn't a consensus that is how addiction works. It's pointless to argue as I haven't taken biochemistry yet. My knowledge about this is limited to other peoples opinions and my own experience as a heroin addict. I always felt it was a very strong desire, and I always had a choice. It's why and how I stopped using heroin. It was like a really destructive relationship with someone I loved and hated the same time, kind of like an ex-girlfriend more than an uncontrollable urge (pulling hand out of a fire or thirst).
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173344 - 09/01/15 10:09 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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What do you mean there isn't a consensus about how addiction works?
http://www.asam.org/for-the-public/definition-of-addiction
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/how-addiction-hijacks-the-brain
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The scientific consensus has changed since then. Today we recognize addiction as a chronic disease that changes both brain structure and function.
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fapjack
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22173364 - 09/01/15 10:14 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Medicine and science aren't the same thing, especially not psychology which is a pseudoscience.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173401 - 09/01/15 10:24 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Neuroscience is not psuedoscience.
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/16/5529.abstract Cannabis Use Is Quantitatively Associated with Nucleus Accumbens and Amygdala Abnormalities in Young Adult Recreational Users
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Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, but little is known about its effects on the human brain, particularly on reward/aversion regions implicated in addiction, such as the nucleus accumbens and amygdala. Animal studies show structural changes in brain regions such as the nucleus accumbens after exposure to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, but less is known about cannabis use and brain morphometry in these regions in humans. We collected high-resolution MRI scans on young adult recreational marijuana users and nonusing controls and conducted three independent analyses of morphometry in these structures: (1) gray matter density using voxel-based morphometry, (2) volume (total brain and regional volumes), and (3) shape (surface morphometry). Gray matter density analyses revealed greater gray matter density in marijuana users than in control participants in the left nucleus accumbens extending to subcallosal cortex, hypothalamus, sublenticular extended amygdala, and left amygdala, even after controlling for age, sex, alcohol use, and cigarette smoking. Trend-level effects were observed for a volume increase in the left nucleus accumbens only. Significant shape differences were detected in the left nucleus accumbens and right amygdala. The left nucleus accumbens showed salient exposure-dependent alterations across all three measures and an altered multimodal relationship across measures in the marijuana group. These data suggest that marijuana exposure, even in young recreational users, is associated with exposure-dependent alterations of the neural matrix of core reward structures and is consistent with animal studies of changes in dendritic arborization.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24082084 Loss of metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 escalates alcohol consumption.
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Identification of genes influencing complex traits is hampered by genetic heterogeneity, the modest effect size of many alleles, and the likely involvement of rare and uncommon alleles. Etiologic complexity can be simplified in model organisms. By genomic sequencing, linkage analysis, and functional validation, we identified that genetic variation of Grm2, which encodes metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2), alters alcohol preference in animal models. Selectively bred alcohol-preferring (P) rats are homozygous for a Grm2 stop codon (Grm2 *407) that leads to largely uncompensated loss of mGluR2. mGluR2 receptor expression was absent, synaptic glutamate transmission was impaired, and expression of genes involved in synaptic function was altered. Grm2 *407 was linked to increased alcohol consumption and preference in F2 rats generated by intercrossing inbred P and nonpreferring rats. Pharmacologic blockade of mGluR2 escalated alcohol self-administration in Wistar rats, the parental strain of P and nonpreferring rats. The causal role of mGluR2 in altered alcohol preference was further supported by elevated alcohol consumption in Grm2 (-/-) mice. Together, these data point to mGluR2 as an origin of alcohol preference and a potential therapeutic target.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10986361 Changes in hippocampal morphology following chronic treatment with the synthetic cannabinoid WIN 55,212-2.
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Learning and memory are often correlated with cellular changes within the hippocampus, and drugs or environmental factors which affect learning and memory will thus often induce observable morphological changes in this structure. Like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) itself, many synthetic cannabinoids such as the CB-1 receptor agonist WIN 55,212-2 will induce learning and memory changes. In the current study, we investigate whether or not these changes could be related to structural changes within the hippocampus. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected twice daily (12:00 and 0:00 h) subcutaneously with WIN 55,212-2 (2.0 mg/kg) in DMSO or DMSO for 21 days. On day 22, animals were perfused and stained immunochemically for the dendritic marker MAP-2, or with cresyl violet. Morphometric analysis showed dendritic rearrangement with increased staining of MAP-2 in CA3 and the lower blade of the dentate gyrus. However, a loss of staining was observed in CA1. Counting of cresyl violet stained sections showed an apparent increase in granule cell number in the lower blade of the dentate gyrus. This work shows the potential for cannabinoids to influence hippocampal morphology. The pattern of changes may be similar to that seen after ischemic or toxic damage, but may be opposite to changes seen in stress.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23966583 The effects of cocaine self-administration on dendritic spine density in the rat hippocampus are dependent on genetic background.
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Chronic exposure to cocaine induces modifications to neurons in the brain regions involved in addiction. Hence, we evaluated cocaine-induced changes in the hippocampal CA1 field in Fischer 344 (F344) and Lewis (LEW) rats, 2 strains that have been widely used to study genetic predisposition to drug addiction, by combining intracellular Lucifer yellow injection with confocal microscopy reconstruction of labeled neurons. Specifically, we examined the effects of cocaine self-administration on the structure, size, and branching complexity of the apical dendrites of CA1 pyramidal neurons. In addition, we quantified spine density in the collaterals of the apical dendritic arbors of these neurons. We found differences between these strains in several morphological parameters. For example, CA1 apical dendrites were more branched and complex in LEW than in F344 rats, while the spine density in the collateral dendrites of the apical dendritic arbors was greater in F344 rats. Interestingly, cocaine self-administration in LEW rats augmented the spine density, an effect that was not observed in the F344 strain. These results reveal significant structural differences in CA1 pyramidal cells between these strains and indicate that cocaine self-administration has a distinct effect on neuron morphology in the hippocampus of rats with different genetic backgrounds.
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fapjack
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22173450 - 09/01/15 10:41 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Which one of those studies is about addiction being a disease? I don't understand neurobiochemistry well enough to comprehend any of that. I didn't say all of neuroscience was a pseudoscience either, I said psychology was a pseudoscience. There is a difference. Addiction is an extremely complex phenomenon, I don't believe it's that simple. A problem with the mind doesn't always mean a problem with the brain. Believe what you want, neither one of us is going to change how the other thinks.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173477 - 09/01/15 10:50 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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OMG you are hopeless.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Quaraishi.html
You are trying to turn this into something it isn't and are trying to find any way to duck and dodge your way out of being shown that you very obviously have no idea no idea what you're talking about- which you've sort of just admitted. If you don't want to understand neuroscience, then you're making a decision not to understand how addiction works. It is that simple. Just leave the understanding to those of us who take these matters seriously.
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fapjack
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22173617 - 09/01/15 11:30 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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You are drawing a conclusion from an observation. Just because something is observed in all addicts doesn't mean it is the cause of addiction. My understanding comes from my own subjective experiences. Addiction isn't a disease, the whole concept is a way to take responsibility away from the user. It's easier to blame something else, and because of how politicized medicine is it isn't hard to fill in the blanks after the fact. Correlation does not imply causation. Just because I don't fully understand the mechanism doesn't mean I didn't experience it, so I think I do have some insight. I also quit using opioids without any therapy. Addiction is hard, but so is living. Calling addiction a disease is such a cop out. Glad it works for you though. I will continue to not do heroin, as it's really not that hard for me. I got myself here because it wasn't a disease, it was a matter of will power.
Also your use of the term "defect" for a certain type of behavior is an opinion. You could use that classification for many other types of behavior, including any mental illness. Is someone that devotes all their time to church because they are afraid of going to hell suffering from a disease? What about someone that is so addicted to money that they horde vast wealth? This is where the politicization of medicine cuts off socially acceptible behavior from mental illness. Being gay should be considered a disease by that definition, though medicine would seem to disagree right now.
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Edited by fapjack (09/01/15 11:51 AM)
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Bitter Cactus
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173731 - 09/01/15 11:55 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Addiction is more a choice then a disease.
-------------------- Taking acid and thinking you are a better man is a lot different then actually becoming a better man.
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morrowasted
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: fapjack]
#22173870 - 09/01/15 12:41 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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fapjack said: You are drawing a conclusion from an observation.
That is how science works.
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My understanding comes from my own subjective experiences.
So does everyone's, the only difference is, science involves the subjective experiences of hundreds of thousands of individuals which are in agreement with one another and which build on each other.
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the whole concept is a way to take responsibility away from the user.
No, classifying addiction as a brain disease is merely a byproduct of the set of diagnostic criteria for diseases in medicine.
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It's easier to blame something else, and because of how politicized medicine is it isn't hard to fill in the blanks after the fact.
It is actually harder to treat addicts as patients than it is to treat them as criminals.
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Correlation does not imply causation.
Thanks for that, David Hume. Quote:
I also quit using opioids without any therapy.
No, you quit using opiates without any therapy.
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Calling addiction a disease is such a cop out.
Now you are just repeating yourself in different ways. Glad it works for you though. Quote:
I will continue to not do heroin, as it's really not that hard for me.
Because you haven't done it in a while and your brain has healed. Quote:
I got myself here because it wasn't a disease, it was a matter of will power.
You don't seem to understand that these things are not mutually exclusive. Just because addiction is a disease does not mean that you can't will your way out of it.
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Also your use of the term "defect" for a certain type of behavior is an opinion.
Based on mountains of hard evidence. Quote:
You could use that classification for many other types of behavior, including any mental illness.
Only if they were equally well-evidenced. Quote:
Is someone that devotes all their time to church because they are afraid of going to hell suffering from a disease?
I don't know. Why don't you do some goddamn research instead of speculating like a buffoon? Quote:
What about someone that is so addicted to money that they horde vast wealth?
Possibly. Quote:
This is where the politicization of medicine cuts off socially acceptible behavior from mental illness.
Only because they haven't yet chosen to research certain things.
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morrowasted
Worldwide Stepper



Registered: 10/30/09
Posts: 31,377
Loc: House of Mirrors
Last seen: 4 days, 21 hours
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: Bitter Cactus]
#22173877 - 09/01/15 12:42 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Bitter Cactus said: Addiction is more a choice then a disease.
both are true
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Bitter Cactus
reformed bad boy



Registered: 01/26/12
Posts: 11,773
Loc: Alberta, Canada
Last seen: 8 years, 4 months
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Re: Marc Lewis: the neuroscientist who believes addiction is not a disease [Re: morrowasted]
#22173882 - 09/01/15 12:44 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Addiction is not a disease. Are all smokers diseased?
-------------------- Taking acid and thinking you are a better man is a lot different then actually becoming a better man.
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