The Science of Addiction - How Addiction Hijacks the Brain.

Some things in life just feel good. Usually these things are related to our continued survival like eating and sex. However sometimes things that aren't good for us like some drugs. And spending way too much time online can also give us those same feelings and this may lead to an addiction. 

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Inside our brains we have a reward pathway, That is located in our limbic system. The area responsible for emotions and the formation of memories. As the name suggests "the reward pathway" rewards us for doing certain actions like eating. A neurotransmitter called dopamine is released, making us pay attention to what we're currently doing and hopefully repeat that action in the future. So this is good our brains are telling us "Hey I'm having an awesome time eating the strawberry I should totally keep this up" But you can see where this could go wrong if instead our brain said the same thing about drugs or harmful behaviors. 

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Normally when dopamine is released in our brains it is later reabsorbed by the neuronic came from. But some drugs like cocaine prevent that from happening. This results in an excessive amount of dopamine in the synapse between two neurons giving the user there high. Our brains which want to maintain homeostasis or balance will eventually adjust to some drugs by decreasing the amount of the neurons dopamine receptors. Basically this means that the same amount of a drug will not give the user the same high because not as many receptors are being stimulated. This is known as tolerance and because these drugs alter the brains neurons withdrawal can occur, if the user suddenly stopped or drastically decreases their usage. The symptoms may vary depending on the drug and can include depression, headaches, vomiting and difficulty breathing. 

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It's important to note that addiction is not just limited to drugs and alcohol. Behaviors such as compulsive gambling can stimulate the brain's reward system in similar ways. But there is always a silver lining somewhere drug and behavioral addictions can be overcome. 

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