Neuroscience and addiction research: current advances and perspectives

Excerpt

Addiction, or substance use disorder, is a complex relapsing disorder that affect millions of individuals worldwide (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2023; SAMHSA 2022). The disease stems from recreational use of euphorigenic substances as diverse as psychostimulants (cocaine, amphetamine), narcotics (morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl), cannabinoids, alcohol or more recent synthetic drugs of abuse (Gilpin 2023; Kaye et al. 2023). In some cases (Maldonado et al. 2021), occasional use switches to a compulsive drug taking with loss-of-control over drug use. Vulnerable individuals then enter a vicious cycle where intoxication episodes are followed by a highly aversive withdrawal state, leading to a craving phase with increasing desire for the drug, which typically causes the next intoxication episode (Koob and Volkow 2010; Stewart et al. 2019). As the brain adapts to repeated exposure to the drug, negative affect gradually overrides the positive subjective of the drug (Koob 2020), and maintaining abstinence represents a major defy for affected individuals (Beaulieu et al. 2021; Parvaz et al. 2022). Molecular determinants and the neurocircuitry of addiction are intensively investigated since decades, and have addressed all stages of the vicious cycle (Darcq and Kieffer 2018; Koob and Volkow 2016; Volkow and Blanco 2021; Nestler and Luscher 2019), however prevention, diagnostic and treatment still remain insufficient. The recent opioid epidemics, originally triggered by opioid over prescription for pain treatment (Marshall et al. 2019; Volkow and Blanco 2021; Volkow et al. 2019), has even more increased the need for innovative and personalized approaches to diagnostic and treatment, using the most advanced tools in neuroscience and mental health research. …