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The incentive sensitization theory of addiction: Some current issues.
The incentive sensitization theory of addiction posits that addiction arises primarily from drug-induced sensitization within the brain’s mesocorticolimbic systems, which attribute incentive salience to reward-associated stimuli. When these systems become hypersensitive, they lead to pathological incentive motivation, or ‘wanting,’ for drugs. The article addresses several pertinent questions in the field: the role of learning in incentive sensitization and addiction; the occurrence of incentive sensitization in human addicts; the association between sensitization and the development of addiction-like behavior in animal models; the optimal methods for modeling addiction symptoms in these animals; and the implications of affective pleasure and withdrawal in the context of addiction. [NPID: Addiction, hypersensitive, incentive sensitization theory, wanting, drug-induced sensitization, mesocorticolimbic]
Year: 2008
