Main description:

Why can two people use a drug and one person becomes addicted while the other does not? Determinants of Addiction: Neurobiological, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sociocultural Factors unravels the complexities underlying addiction to understand how individual factors at the genetic, cellular, anatomical, cognitive-behavioral, and sociocultural level can influence susceptibility to substance use disorders. The first section reviews the neurobiological determinants of addiction and examines how drugs hijack the reward pathway and alter numerous neurotransmitter systems such as dopamine. The second section covers the behavioral-cognitive determinants of addiction such a conditioning, memory processes, and decision-making. The final section examines individual differences in addiction vulnerability, with a focus on personality factors, sociocultural factors, sex/gender, and stress. The book references commonly used drugs such as nicotine, ethanol (alcohol), opioids, and cocaine.

Contents:

I: Prologue 1. Introduction to addiction: Substance use disorders

II: Neurobiological mechanisms of addiction 2. Pharmacological actions of commonly used drugs 3. Neuroanatomical and neurochemical substrates of addiction 4. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of addiction

III: Behavioral and cognitive mechanisms of addiction 5. Learning mechanisms of addiction: operant conditioning 6. Learning mechanisms of addiction: Pavlovian conditioning 7. Attentional and memory processes underlying addiction 8. Maladaptive decision making and addiction

IV: Individual and sociocultural factors linked to addiction 9. Individual differences in addiction: focus on personality traits 10. Social and sociocultural factors associated with addiction 11. Stress and addiction 12. Gender and sex differences in addiction

V: Epilogue 13. Beyond substance use disorders:Behavioral addictions