title: Transitionality in addiction: A "temporal continuum" hypotheses involving the aberrant motivation, the hedonic dysregulation, and the aberrant learning.
abstract: Addiction is a chronic compulsion and relapsing disorder. It involves several brain areas and circuits, which encode vary functions such as reward, motivation, and memory. Drug addiction is defined as a "pathological pattern of use of a substance", characterized by the loss of control on drug-taking-related behaviors, the pursuance of those behaviors even in the presence of negative consequences, and a strong motivated activity to assume substances. Three different theories guide experimental research on drug addiction. Each of these theories consider singles features, such as an aberrant motivation, a hedonic dysregulation, and an aberrant habit learning as the main actor to explain the entire process of the addictive behaviors. The major goal of this study is to present a new hypotheses of transitionality from a controlled use to abuse of addictive substances trough the overview of the three different theories, considering all the single features of each single theory together on the same "temporal continuum" from use to abuse of addictive substances. Recently, it has been suggested that common neural systems may be activated by natural and pharmacological stimuli, raising the hypotheses that binge-eating disorders could be considered as addictive behaviors. The second goal of this study is to present evidences in order to highlight a possible psycho-bio-physiological superimposition between drug and "food addiction". Finally, interesting questions are brought up starting from last findings about a theoretical/psycho-bio-physiological superimposition between drug and "food addiction" and their possibly same transitionality along the same "temporal continuum" from use to abuse of addictive substances in order to investigate new therapeutic strategies based on new therapeutic strategies based on the individual moments characterizing the transition from the voluntary intake of substances to the maladaptive addictive behavior.
authors.affiliation: System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan. Electronic address: e.patrono@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Patrono
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Clinical Science and Biotechnology, University of L'Aquila, Coppito, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gasbarri
authors.affiliation: Primate Center and Department of Physiological Sciences, Institute of Biology, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, DF, Brazil; Neuroscience Research Group, UNICEUMA, São Luis, MA, Brazil.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tomaz
authors.affiliation: System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan.
authors.forename: Hisao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishijo
mesh_terms: D001519:Behavior; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009042:Motivation; D012201:Reward; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*
chemical_list: D004298:Dopamine
keywords: Drug/food addiction; Habit learning; Hedonic dysregulation; Motivation; Reward system; Transitionality