How Genetic and Sociocultural Factors Interact with Mental Health Disorders and Epigenetics to Predispose and Reinforce Substance Use Disorder

Abstract

The recent drug epidemics occurring nationally and globally have called for questions of “nature vs. nurture” with regard to what predisposes for addiction. What has a more significant impact on drug risk? Biological or environmental factors? The understanding of different impacts can fundamentally change how people treat substance use disorder (SUD). However, SUD is a lot more complex and requires the interaction of many risk factors. While nature may predispose addiction, your environment must aid the predisposition to facilitate and reinforce SUD. This project will show how genetic, social, and mental health risk factors interact to cause addiction as well as how SUD is reinforced through social pressures and epigenetics. Here we review literature on the different risk factors that contribute to addiction and how they interact. Specifically, we investigate the impact of genetic factors, sociocultural influences, mental health disorders, and epigenetics on SUD. Knowing what can assist a predisposal to SUD would not only further our understanding of addiction but could also help people who struggle with SUD by reinforcing social policies and health infrastructures that help with treatment and recovery from SUD. It could also help parents protect their kids from growing up in environments that may influence them and push them to develop SUD in the future. The understanding of risk factors can lower the number of people with SUD in the future and help people currently trying to recover from SUD by interrupting addiction cycles.