PSY 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Substance Abuse, Biopsychosocial Model, Body Fluid

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 2301
• Professor: Sharon Lee

Document Summary

This course is a biology-based course - so we talk about neurotransmission and behavioural effects. But addiction is probably best explained by the biopsychosocial model. Historically, drug addiction was viewed as either a weakness or (more recently) as a disease that is genetically inherited. In reality it most likely results from a combination of biological (including some genetic predispositions), psychological (including developmental) and social (life experience factors) Addiction and dependence (definitions and equations to help memory of terms) Substance abuse = chronic, excessive use (non-therapeutic) of drug. Substance abuse + physical dependence = addiction = (substance dependence) Physical dependence = tolerance + withdrawal symptoms (on cessation) Withdrawal symptoms = behaviours or physical disturbances on cessation (often opposite to the effects of the drugs) All abused drugs psychomotor activation (feeling of energy & control) Probably due to activation of dopamine neurons (more later in lecture) Abuse and psychomotor activation probably both due to da activation.