Pleasure Systems In The Brain.

Pleasure.

For my third annotation I decided to talk about this page on the "reward system," or rather the reward pathway, or reward circuit (mesolimbic system), of the brain. When it comes to discussing, not only drug addiction, but all forms of addiction it's important to understand the way our brain "learns," or conditions itself, when it comes to "receiving rewards."

"Neurological research has identified a biological mechanism mediating behavior motivated by events commonly associated with pleasure in humans. These events are termed "rewards" and are viewed as primary factors governing normal behavior. The subjective impact of rewards (e.g., pleasure) can be considered essential (e.g., Young, 1959) or irrelevant (e.g., Skinner, 1953) to their effect on behavior, but the motivational effect of rewards on behavior is universally acknowledged by experimental psychologists"(Bozarth 1). This stands as the introduction to Bozarth's essay on "pleasure systems in the brain. He basically describes how our behavior is governed from a biological, or chemical, stand point in the brain. Bozarth defines "rewards" in the brain as general feelings of pleasure in humans, something easily achieved through the use of addictive substances, or in terms of my discussion, trich disorder.

As previously discussed, since the actions associated with trich (i.e. hair plucking) are known to be a stress relieving activity, associated with the chemical interaction created from the removal of the hair follicle, it can just as easily become an addictive habit. Thus, by creating a "reward" path of removing the hair and releasing the "pleasure" chemicals in the brain, trich can become uncontrollable.

"Some drugs delivered intravenously can serve as rewards. Most drugs that are self-administered by humans are also self-administered by laboratory animals. The most potent drug rewards include the psychomotor stimulants (e.g., amphetamine, cocaine) and the opiates (heroin, morphine). These drugs are self-administered by laboratory animals that have surgically implanted intravenous catheters. Animals quickly learn to press a lever to intravenously self-administer drugs such as cocaine and heroin. This experimental preparation provides an animal model of human drug-taking behavior and hence a method to study the reinforcing properties of drugs; this reinforcing drug-action forms the basis for drug addiction in humans (see Bozarth, 1987b, 1990). It is important to note that addiction is defined as a behavioral syndrome where a drug seems to exert extreme control over the individual's behavior and is not defined by physiological withdrawal reactions such as those accompanying abstinence from some drugs"(Bozarth 2). This excerpt from Bozarth's essay does a nice job of showing how addiction, and the reward path of the brain go hand in hand. It more or less provides the scientific chemical and biological means of addiction. As specifically talked about in this article, after the "pathway" is created the drive becomes more intense to reach the same state of pleasure, and with the ease of pushing a lever, or simply using a drug, why wouldn't you? The scary thing is this so happens to be the way our brain learns, thinking from an unfashionable standpoint, and thus governing out behavior.

http://www.addictionscience.net/ASNreport01.htm

From M.A. Bozarth (1994). Pleasure systems in the brain. In D.M. Warburton (ed.), Pleasure: The politics and the reality (pp. 5-14 + refs). New York: John Wiley & Sons. (Note: Minor typographical errors appearing in the published version have been corrected.)

Bozarth, Michael A. Addiction Science Network. 6 Apr. 1994. State University of New York at Buffalo. 5 Apr. 2009 .