Psychomotor Stimulant Addiction: A Neural Systems Perspective

There has been recent, substantial progress in understanding psychomotor stimulant, especially cocaine, addiction on two fronts: (1) characterization of the molecular basis of neuroadaptations induced by drugs of abuse and (2) identification of limbic cortical-ventral striatopallidal systems that underlie associative influences on cocaine-seeking behavior and relapse. A future challenge is to determine how particular neuroadaptations lead to plasticity in these systems, whether such changes are reversible, and how pharmacological treatments may be used to modify these processes and thereby reduce compulsive drug seeking and the propensity for relapse in human addicts.