Compulsion is a cardinal symptom of drug addiction (severe substance use disorder).
However, compulsion is observed in only a small proportion of individuals who repeatedly …

People take addictive drugs to elevate mood, but with repeated use these drugs produce
serious unwanted effects, which can include tolerance to some drug effects, sensitization to …

The concept of compulsion, in which addictive behaviour is said to be carried out against the
will, is central to the disease theory of addiction and ubiquitous in modern definitions. The …

Despite a wealth of recent empirical findings, the debate on addiction remains polarized
along traditional lines. In one camp stand those who see the characteristic actions of addicts …

Neurobiologic Advances from the Brain Disease Model of Addiction | New England Journal of
Medicine Skip to main content The New England Journal of Medicine homepage Advanced …

At the end of the decade of the brain, the study of neural mechanisms has come to dominate
the study of addiction. Whereas attention was once on somatic withdrawal symptoms and …

Drug addiction is increasingly viewed as the endpoint of a series of transitions from initial
drug use—when a drug is voluntarily taken because it has reinforcing, often hedonic, effects …

Compulsive drug intake is a hallmark of addiction, yet a mechanistic understanding of this
process has been elusive. Drug use is initiated primarily to obtain the excitatory actions of …

Drug addiction presents as a chronic relapsing disorder characterized by persistent drug‐
seeking and drug‐taking behaviours. Given the significant detrimental effects of this disease …

The processes that underlie the pathological pursuit of drugs in addiction and that support
the transition from casual drug taking to their compulsive pursuit have recently been …