Episodic memories and their relevance for psychoactive drug use and addiction.

Christian P. Müller

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00034

Abstract

The majority of adult people in western societies regularly consume psychoactive drugs. While this consumption is integrated in everyday life activities and controlled in most consumers, it may escalate and result in drug addiction. Non-addicted drug use requires the systematic establishment of highly organized behaviors, such as drug-seeking and -taking. While a significant role for classical and instrumental learning processes is well established in drug use and abuse, declarative drug memories have largely been neglected in research. Episodic memories are an important part of the declarative memories. Here a role of episodic drug memories in the establishment of non-addicted drug use and its transition to addiction is suggested. In relation to psychoactive drug consumption, episodic drug memories are formed when a person prepares for consumption, when the drug is consumed and, most important, when acute effects, withdrawal, craving, and relapse are experienced. Episodic drug memories are one-trial memories with emotional components that can be much stronger than “normal” episodic memories. Their establishment coincides with drug-induced neuronal activation and plasticity. These memories may be highly extinction resistant and influence psychoactive drug consumption, in particular during initial establishment and at the transition to “drug instrumentalization.” In that, understanding how addictive drugs interact with episodic memory circuits in the brain may provide crucial information for how drug use and addiction are established.

Highlights

“I smoked my first cigarette when I was 12 years old – behind the house, together with a few friends and some older guys who had provided it for trying
Do episodic memories just orchestrate other, more important learning processes at consciously accessible level or do they play a causal role in the establishment of regular drug consumption and addiction?
The consumption may range from a one-trial experience, after which the consummatory behavior is never repeated up to a stage of drug addiction when virtually all behavioral activity is directed toward the consumption of one or more psychoactive drugs

Summary

Episodic memories and their relevance for psychoactive drug use and addiction

The majority of adult people in western societies regularly consume psychoactive drugs. While this consumption is integrated in everyday life activities and controlled in most consumers, it may escalate and result in drug addiction. A role of episodic drug memories in the establishment of non-addicted drug use and its transition to addiction is suggested. Episodic drug memories are one-trial memories with emotional components that can be much stronger than “normal” episodic memories Their establishment coincides with drug-induced neuronal activation and plasticity. These memories may be highly extinction resistant and influence psychoactive drug consumption, in particular during initial establishment and at the transition to “drug instrumentalization.”.

INTRODUCTION

CONCLUSION