Research teams led by Professor Everitt have already established that the path to addiction entails several transitions, shifting behavioural control from one brain area to another - from voluntary, goal-directed action to involuntary, compulsive drug seeking habit. The recreational first stage involves reward stimulation controlled by the ventral striatum, the brain's key reward-processing area. The addiction stage involves the establishment of automatic drug seeking habits that are powerfully elicited by drug-associated conditioned stimuli, and are controlled by the dorsal striatum.
Drug craving and seeking behaviour, as well as relapse, are driven largely by recollection of powerful drug-associated memories, explained Professor Everitt. As the brain retrieves these memories - by recall, or exposure to drug-related stimuli - memory reconsolidation takes place. This neurochemical…
