Introduction
The given article states that to successfully treat substance abuse, we should recognize addiction as a brain disorder. The article also gives us some details on brain anatomy and states that exploring the brain’s physiology is the key factor in the clinical understanding of addiction as a disease. The studies show that addiction equally affects the brain’s survival and pleasure centers, which trigger the most primitive instincts in humans and other animals alike. Those centers are sometimes referred to as the Lizard Brain, due to it being responsible for such reactions and needs as eating, drinking, fleeing, defending oneself, etc.
Evidence Used
For this article, the authors relied on information from such sources as the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASAColumbia), The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), Am J Psychiatry, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and others. All of them can be identified as helpful and trustworthy data suppliers. The authors applied screening tools like Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT), the World Health Organization (WHO) Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT); and questionnaires like WHO, the CAGE, and the Drug Abuse Screen Test (DAST) to estimate the presence of an addiction. All in all, it can be said that the article had a very solid informational basis.
The Target Audience
This article is relevant to the situation in modern US society because, as it was stated at the beginning, 40 million people suffer from different forms of substance addiction in the United States, with about 80 million more on the verge of acquiring some sort of substance addiction. These figures look terrifying, as they reflect almost half of the population (about 48%). Substance abuse is often followed by much more serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and AIDS. At present, almost 20 million people in the US have cancer. There is also a constant death rate attributed to prescription drug overdose, which is growing every year (Miller 291). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 165,000 people have died from prescribed drug overdoses in America from 1999 to 2014 (par. 1). Opioids, of course, always pose a special problem, as they contain dopamine – the substance responsible for developing an addiction to a drug (Johnson and North 483). This article will be helpful, both to people battling or helping others battle a substance use disorder and those who are simply interested in the topic.
The Accessibility of Information
The information is easy to digest, due to the structure of the article: It presents a collection of arguments, each highlighted and explained in a paragraph with a sub-headline. This division helps me as a reader to better concentrate on what I am reading because the information is offered in smaller portions, rather than in one long and seemingly endless piece of text.
Three Facts I Have Learned from the Article
The most interesting facts I have learned from this article are:
- Addiction is a disease itself, not a symptom of a disease (Atkinson Smith and Hambelton 60).
- Binding to VTA, thalamus, nucleus accumbens, brainstem, and spinal cord causes opioids to produce a pain-numbing effect (Atkinson Smith and Hambelton 59).
- There are special tools to determine the presence or absence of a substance use disorder (Atkinson Smith and Hambelton 61).
Using this Information in Clinical Practice
This research might prove very useful. It will help me address substance abuse in a new way. Knowing now that it is identified as a brain disorder, I will try to apply this newfound information to similar cases I might encounter in my medical practice.
Recommendation
I would recommend this article to other students, because of its informative, comprehensible presentation, structure, and good examples. In addition, it lists several useful tools one can easily apply in his or her clinical practice.
Improvements
This article could have used some photographic comparisons, for example, one of a normal brain and a brain affected by opioids. It would have more drastically underlined the effects.
What this Article Made Me Find out More about
I acquired more interest in researching the work of opioids: the way they affect the brain and cause addiction. For example, this article prompted me to find out about possible ways new opioid ligands develop through dimeric interfaces. If these interfaces prove to be physiologically compatible, they might be used to develop dimerization-destabilizing compounds (Filizola and Devi 5). This, in turn, will help us to understand the role of oligomerization in the function of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) (Nature Education).
Conclusion
This article paints a clear picture of the problem, using academic sources and medical surveys and presenting us with the ways to solve said problem. Substance use disorder is a brain disease and should be treated as one. We can help patients by recalibrating the source of the problem – the brain’s survival and pleasure centers – to help them derive enjoyment from other simple things and control the necessity to abuse opioids. The article is accessibly written, informative, and very helpful, which makes it a good inspiration for young medical professionals.
Works Cited
Atkinson Smith, Mary and Scott Hambelton. “An Understanding of Substance Use Disorder.” The Clinical Advisor. (2014): 57-64. Web.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. n.d. Prescription Opioid Overdose Data. n.d. Web.
Filizola, Marta and Lakshmi A. Devi. “Grand Opening of Structure-Guided Design for Novel Opioids.” Trends in Pharmacological Sciences 34.1 (2013): 6–12. Print.
“GPCR.” nature.com. Nature Education. n.d. Web.
Johnson, S.W. and R. A. North. “Opioids Excite Dopamine Neurons by Hyperpolarization of Local Interneurons.” The Journal of Neuroscience 12.2 (1994): 483-488. Print.
Miller, William R. “Educating Psychologists About Substance Abuse.” Substance Abuse Journal 23.1 (2002): 289-303. Print. Web.