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Volume 8 Issue 11, November 2005

Addiction is pervasive, affecting millions of people around the world. The progression from recreational drug use to drug dependence and addiction is influenced by many factors, including the nature of the drug, the personality of the user, and environmental stressors. In this issue, we present reviews and opinion pieces on the neurobiology of drug abuse, decision making and habit formation, as well as a commentary on how the neuroscience of addiction should guide public policy and treatment. This special focus is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (pp 1427-1489)

Volume 8 Issue 11

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Editorial

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Book Review

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News & Views

  • Cerebellin 1 is abundant in the cerebellum, but its function remains a mystery. Hirai et al. now show that this gene is required to maintain parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synapses, via the orphan glutamate receptor subunit Grid2. These findings provide further evidence that there is a molecular pathway devoted to maintenance of synapses.

    • Fekrije Selimi
    • Nathaniel Heintz
    News & Views

  • A new paper reports that long-term potentiation in the hippocampus, a model of learning and memory, can induce sharp wave-ripple complexes, which are thought to be critical for the stabilization of memory traces in cortex.

    • György Buzsáki
    • James J Chrobak
    News & Views

  • Not all axons in a peripheral nerve are myelinated. A recent study shows that the expression of neuregulin-1 on an axon membrane determines whether immature Schwann cells will differentiate into myelinating Schwann cells.

    • Klaus-Armin Nave
    • Markus H Schwab
    News & Views

  • Why are some neurons selectively targeted for death in neurodegenerative diseases? A recent paper combines genetics in the fruit fly and mouse to uncover mechanisms underlying the vulnerability of Purkinje cells in spinocerebellar ataxia-1.

    • Vikram Khurana
    • Tudor A Fulga
    • Mel B Feany
    News & Views

  • Individuals with neglect fail to process stimuli on the left. A new paper uses functional imaging to show that a restricted lesion, usually caused by a stroke, may influence the network of areas associated with attention shifts.

    • Yalçin Abdullaev
    • Michael I Posner
    News & Views
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Introduction

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Sponsors' Foreword

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Commentary

  • In the United States, efforts to treat addiction are hampered by prejudice and a public view that treats it as a disorder of self-control, not a disease. We highlight select advances in addiction research that, if disseminated to the public, could reverse these misconceptions and facilitate changes in policy to improve treatment access and care delivery for this highly prevalent disease.

    • Charles Dackis
    • Charles O'Brien
    Commentary

  • One of the most difficult problems in treating addiction is not withdrawing addicts from drugs, but preventing relapse. Persistent neuroadaptations are thought to underlie aspects of addiction, including relapse. This commentary assesses the degree to which these neuroadaptations, primarily identified in preclinical studies on cocaine, induce relapse.

    • Yavin Shaham
    • Bruce T Hope
    Commentary

  • Although many drug-induced neural changes are known, progress has been slow in identifying the ones that actually mediate addiction. Identifying changes that are specific to particular elements of the transition from initial to habitual to relapsing drug use may be a fruitful strategy for pinpointing which forms of drug-induced plasticity are critical for addiction.

    • Peter W Kalivas
    Commentary

  • Drug seeking is associated with activation of reward neural circuitry. Here we argue that drug addiction also involves a 'dark side'—a decrease in the function of normal reward-related neurocircuitry and persistent recruitment of anti-reward systems. Understanding the neuroplasticity of the dark side of this circuitry is the key to understanding vulnerability to addiction.

    • George F Koob
    • Michel Le Moal
    Commentary
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Perspective

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Review Article

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Brief Communication

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Article

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Technical Report

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Focus

  • This focus contains a series of specially commissioned reviews and perspectives on the neurobiology of drug abuse, decision making and habit formation, as well as a commentary on how these basic science insights should guide public policy on addiction and its treatment. Thanks to generous support from our sponsors, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, this focus will be freely available online through January 2006.

    Focus
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