The Brain Can Change
The brain can change – truly!
One of the most encouraging things about all of the new brain and addiction-related research is learning we can actually change and heal neural networks and thereby change and repair our brains. This can be especially helpful to addicts/alcoholics and their families and friends because addiction is a brain disease. And as a disease, it can be treated.
The following is an excerpt from “Challenges and Opportunities in Drug Addiction Research, A Decade After the Decade of the Brain,” by Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), published by The Dana Foundation on February 18, 2010:
Neuroscience is at a historic turning point. Today, a full decade after the “Decade of the Brain,” a continuous stream of advances is shattering long-held notions about how the human brain works and what happens when it doesn’t. These advances are also reshaping the landscapes of other fields, from psychology to economics, education and the law.
Until the Decade of the Brain, scientists believed that, once development was over, the adult brain underwent very few changes. This perception contributed to polarizing perspectives on whether genetics or environment determines a person’s temperament and personality, aptitudes, and vulnerability to mental disorders. But during the past two decades, neuroscientists have steadily built the case that the human brain, even when fully mature, is far more plastic—changing and malleable—than we originally thought.(1) It turns out that the brain (at all ages) is highly responsive to environmental stimuli and that connections between neurons are dynamic and can rapidly change within minutes of stimulation.
… For example, scientists are using imaging technologies in neurofeedback programs that train people to voluntarily recalibrate their neural activity in specific areas of the brain, allowing them to gain unprecedented control over, for example, pain perception(5) or emotional processing.(6) During drug addiction treatment, this approach could greatly reduce the risk of relapse by enabling a patient to control the powerful cravings triggered by a host of cues (e.g., people, things, places) that have become tightly linked, in the brain of the user, to the drug experience….
To read the entire article, click here: “Challenges and Opportunities in Drug Addiction Research, A Decade After the Decade of the Brain.”
Lisa Frederiksen
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Thank you so much for your interesting article. This is really positive news about addiction and the advancing treatments that may be possible in the next decade. This means that there is hope for everyone who has felt powerless over their own bad habits. The thought that cravings, negative thoughts and impulsive behaviors may be “curable” in the future is a little scary, but even more encouraging. Ground breaking discoveries in neuroscience show so much potential to reduce the suffering of people who not only have addictions, but also neural-degenerative diseases, impulse control problems and mental illness. Even though it does sound a little bit like science fiction, researching the brain and how it works is truly something that definitely deserves priority.
Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment. This is a very exciting time!!
My next book, Loved One In Treatment? Now What!, offers a closer (though reader friendly) look at this research and how it can be used to help family members and friends understand addiction, what has happened to them and what they can do to help themselves, which in the process, helps their loved one’s recovery.