Cognitive, Clinical, and Neural Aspects of Drug Addiction

Drug addictions are often difficult to treat. The most successful treatments begin with studying why individuals become addicted to drugs and how to change their thinking and behaviour. Cognitive, Clinical, and Neural Aspects of Drug Addiction focuses on the theories that cause drug addiction, including avoidance behavior, self-medication, reward sensitization, behavioral inhibition and impulsivity. Dr. Moustafa takes this book one step further by reviewing the psychological and neural causes of relapse including the role of stress, anxiety and depression. By examining both the causes of drug addiction and relapse, this book will help clinicians create individualized treatment options for patients suffering from drug addiction.

Identifies key factors contributing to addiction, including stress, anxiety and depressionReviews inhibition and impulsivity in drug useAssesses the cognitive underpinnings of behavioral choices in addictionDiscusses the argument of self-medication vs. reward sensitizationExamines the psychological causes of why patients relapse

1. Learning from aversive vs. appetitive outcome in drug addiction
2. The role of contextual processes in drug use and relapse
3. Avoidance behavior in addiction
4. Behavioral inhibition and impulsivity as factors underlying drug use
5. Delay, probability and effort discounting underlying addictive behaviors
6. The varieties of risk taking behaviors in drug abuse
7. Extinction learning in addiction: relevance to cue exposure therapy
8. The psychological causes of relapse
9. Future thinking and intolerance of uncertainty in addiction
10. The bidirectional relationship between depression and addiction
11. The role of stress and anxiety in drug use and relapse
12. The effect of trauma on drug use
13. Theories of Addiction: self-medication vs. reward sensitization
14. Summary and future directions in addiction research