Incentive-sensitization and addiction

FRANÇAIS :
Le processus selon lequel des comportements de prise de drogues évoluent, chez certaines personnes, vers un mode compulsif est examiné dans cette étude. Quatre aspects sont discutés : les drogues potentiellement addictives partagent la même propriété d'altérer l'organisation du cerveau ; les systèmes cérébraux altérés comprennent ceux qui sont normalement impliqués dans le processus de motivation incitative et de récompense ; la neuro-adaptation rend ces systèmes de récompense hypersensibles aux drogues et aux stimuli associés aux drogues ; et, les systèmes cérébraux qui sont sensibilisés ne transmettent pas les effets de plaisir et d'euphorie des drogues, mais à la place, ils transmettent un sous composant de la récompense que les auteurs appellent "wanting" ou valeur incitative (attribution de caractéristiques attractives aux stimuli ou à leur représentation).
ENGLISH:
The question of addiction concerns the process by which drug-taking behavior, in certain individuals, evolves into compulsive patterns of drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior that take place at the expense of most other activities, and the inability to cease drug-taking, that is, the problem of relapse. In this paper we summarize one view of this process, the "incentive-sensitization" view, which we first proposed in 1993. Four major tenets of the incentive-sensitization view are discussed. These are: (1) potentially addictive drugs share the ability to alter brain organization; (2) the brain systems that are altered include those normally involved in the process of incentive motivation and reward; (3) the critical neuroadaptations for addiction render these brain reward systems hypersensitive ("sensitized") to drugs and drug-associated stimuli; and (4) the brain systems that are sensitized do not mediate the pleasurable or euphoric effects of drugs (drug "liking'), but instead they mediate a subcomponent of reward we have termed incentive salience (drug "wanting"). (Author' s abstract)