PSY407H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter N/A: Biopsychosocial Model, Decision-Making
Document Summary
Negotiating the relationship between addiction, ethics, and brain science. People living with addiction tend to have decreased dopamine d2 receptors, and decreased dopamine release. The brain disease model is reductive, it does not explain everything about addiction. They argue for the biopsychosocial models in which psychological and sociological factors complement and are in a dynamic interplay with neurobiological and genetic factors. Psychosocial systems are concrete entities or groups whose members act in relation to each other, such as families, religious organizations, and political parties. Cravings can be cue-elicited by environmental stimuli, and continued exposures to environmental stimuli may instigate a perpetual cycle of cravings and possibly irreversible brain changes that can occur long after an individual has become abstinent. Long-standing debates concerning the moral status of addiction have arisen from one of two perspectives: either addiction is a disease of the brain, or addiction is a matter of weak will.
