Abstract
Human development has become particularly complex during the evolution. In this complexity, adolescence is an extremely important developmental stage. Adolescence is characterized by biological and social changes that create the prerequisites to psychopathological problems, including both substance and non-substance addictive behaviors. Central to the dynamics of the biological changes during adolescence are the synergy between sexual and neurophysiological development, which activates the motivational/emotional systems of Dominance/Submission. The latter are characterized by the interaction between the sexual hormones, the dopaminergic system and the stress axis (HPA). The maturation of these motivational/emotional systems requires the integration with the phylogenetically more recent Attachment/CARE Systems, which primarily have governed the subject’s relationships until puberty. The integration of these systems is particularly complex in the human species, due to the evolution of the process of competition related to sexual selection: from a simple fight between two individuals (of the same genus and species) to a struggle for the acquisition of a position in rank and the competition between groups. The latter is an important evolutionary acquisition and believed to be the variable that has most contributed to enhancing the capacity for cooperation in the human species. The interaction between competition and cooperation, and between competition and attachment, characterizes the entire human relational and emotional structure and the unending work of integration to which the BrainMind is involved. The beginning of the integration of the aforementioned motivational/emotional systems is currently identified in the prepubertal period, during the juvenile stage, with the development of the Adrenarche—the so-called Adrenal Puberty. This latter stage is characterized by a low rate of release of androgens, the hormones released by the adrenal cortex, which activate the same behaviors as those observed in the PLAY system. The Adrenarche and the PLAY system are biological and functional prerequisites of adolescence, a period devoted to learning the difficult task of integrating the phylogenetically ancient Dominance/Submission Systems with the newer Attachment/CARE Systems. These systems accompany very different adaptive goals which can easily give rise to mutual conflict and can in turn make the balance of the BrainMind precarious and vulnerable to mental suffering.
Highlights
Researches on human development (Boughner and Rolian, 2016) have progressively highlighted how the latter has become complex during the evolution, compared to the development of other animal species
Expanding on the perspective of Affective Neuroscience (Panksepp, 1998; Alcaro and Panksepp, 2014), we proposed that addiction is generally characterized by a narrowing and tightening of the SEEKING disposition around certain compulsive memories that result in it being activated exclusively in specific contexts and channeled only through specific sequences of procedural activities
We have described above how sexual maturation contributes to the enhancement of the mesolimbic dopaminergic (ML DA) system that, in combination with hormonal changes, creates a powerful drive for a wider exploration of the world and sexual competition in search of an expected reward (Ikemoto, 2007)
Summary
Researches on human development (Boughner and Rolian, 2016) have progressively highlighted how the latter has become complex during the evolution, compared to the development of other animal species. The ML DA-SEEKING System appears to be a powerful mechanism that can push the individual towards rewarding behaviors, such as aggression for dominance, but can keep active a depressive emotional dimension connected to a subjective ‘‘belief of defeat’’, which activates automatic protective submission behaviors to maintain a state of ‘‘safety’’ It should be noted, that the depression considered here is not the one resulting from separation (see the paragraph) and from the activation of the attachment system or PANIC/GRIEF system and the diminished brain reward/ML DA-SEEKING (Panksepp and Watt, 2011), but rather the effect of the dynamics of the Dominance/Submission motivational/emotional system. The ML DA SEEKING system becomes the driving center of addictions, both for substance and non-substance addictive behaviors (like gambling, internet, et cetera) that have the same power to subvert the system (Koob and Volkow, 2016; Uhl et al, 2019)
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