You all may recall that I posted recently about cocaine escalation in rats. Drugmonkey has also been posting some interesting stuff about addiction and…EXERCISE. And of course, Sci can’t see that and leave it alone. So I’m going back to a paper that really galvanized the idea of exercise in treating addiction. Cosgrove, Hunter, Carroll. […]
Sci deeply considered titling this post “Becoming Lindsay Lohan: Cocaine Escalation in Rats”. But then I thought…nah…too much. 🙂 Anyway, a post over at Drugmonkey yesterday got Sci to thinking about drug self-administration in rats, and more particularly, HOW we use it to model cocaine addiction in humans. Because, like other models, drug self-administration in […]
Sci had a chance to blog an interesting paper on the value of cocaine in rats (as compared to nice stuff like sugar), and someone pointed out to her that the authors had done a follow up! I think what they found in this followup is really rather exciting and has some very interesting implications […]
Sci would like to start this whole thing off on the right foot, and introduce you all (if you’re new to Scientopia and to Neurotic Physiology) by reposting one of the best posts Sci ever wrote. Unfortunately it was also about the 3rd or 4th blog post that I ever wrote as well. I guess […]
Let it be known that Sci, like many a young, bright-eyed little scientist, tries to keep up on her reading. TRIES is the operative word, but every week Sci gets the Tables of Contents for all the major journals in her field (and all the major ones in her subdisciple) emailed straight to her for […]
As you might have noticed, Sci is really interested lately in the concept of food reward systems, in particular the issues associated with the effects of binge eating on reward systems in the brain, and the issue of “food addiction”. And Sci is not the only one who is interested. Lots of other people in […]
Sci would like to note that today’s entry is being written on the adorably tiny screen of her netbook, which is named Ruby. Everyone say hi to Ruby! Unfortunately, this is because her wireless on her normal computer suddenly decided that it was too good for her modem. Perhaps it’s an April Fool’s Day joke. […]
Sci picked this paper today partially because it was handed to her on a platter by the fantastic Dr. Pal, and partially because today she is SO HUNGRY. She’s had a TON of food already today, and is still entirely ravenous. Maybe it was looking at this paper too long. (Cereal break) Anyway. As I’m […]
Sci continues her discussion of opponent-process theory in this second installment, with many thanks to Koob and his co-author, Le Moal.
So what is the opponent-process theory? The opponent-process theory (hereafter called the OP Theory) is one of the current theories we are using to understand addiction. Because, to be honest, we don’t really understand it.