Time to connect: bringing social context into addiction neuroscience.
Research on the neural substrates of drug reward, withdrawal and relapse has yet to be translated into significant advances in the treatment of addiction. One potential reason is that this research has not captured a common feature of human addiction: progressive social exclusion and marginalization. We propose that research aimed at understanding the neural mechanisms that link these processes to drug seeking and drug taking would help to make addiction neuroscience research more clinically relevant.
Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKE), Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden.
Markus
M
Heilig
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, Maryland 21044, USA.
David H
DH
Epstein
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157, USA.
Michael A
MA
Nader
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, Maryland 21044, USA.
Yavin
Y
Shaham
D000818:Animals; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012201:Reward; D012931:Social Environment; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*