The role of cognitive and reward processes in substance use : a cognitive neuroscience approach to understanding drugs of addiction

Abstract

Drugs of addiction are widely considered to induce a pathological state which involves the progression of acute drug use to the development of drug-seeking behaviour, the decreased and slowed ability to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli, compromised impulse control and a vulnerability to drug relapse during abstinence. Therefore, it is believed that drug addiction is a disorder of the brain involving alterations in major neural substrates related to reward, motivation and/or drive, learning and memory and cognitive control. Cogent scientifically based research that focuses on distinct, well-characterized cognitive processes, believed to be the product of these neuronal substrates, affords neuroscience the opportunity to elucidate cognitive operations in drug users, and importantly, how changes in neural functioning related to cognition likely promotes continued drug use and ultimately, addiction.