Novelty Seeking and Drug Addiction in Humans and Animals: From Behavior to Molecules.

ABSTRACT: Global treatment of drug addiction costs society billions of dollars annually, but current psychopharmacological therapies have not been successful at desired rates. The increasing number of individuals suffering from substance abuse has turned attention to what makes some people more vulnerable to drug addiction than others. One personality trait that stands out as a contributing factor is novelty seeking. Novelty seeking, affected by both genetic and environmental factors, is defined as the tendency to desire novel stimuli and environments. It can be measured in humans through questionnaires and in rodents using behavioral tasks. On the behavioral level, both human and rodent studies demonstrate that high novelty seeking can predict the initiation of drug use and a transition to compulsi

SUBMITTER: Wingo T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4837094 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature