Chemical Dependence Essay

Parallel to this, the focus on genetics is Particularly convicted in twin studies, which establish a comparison between monozygotic twins that are identical and dizygotic twins, which are opposingly non-identical. This distinction can be identified in Torgersens study, which compared MZ and same sex DZ twins where one proband had an anxiety disorder, and it was discovered that such disorders were 5x more frequent in MZ twin pairs, who mutually shared identical genetics.

Twin studies are a mainstay of the nature verse nurture debate because they allow researchers to conduct “natural experiments” on human beings. When researchers try to determine the relative importance of genetics and environment with regard to a certain condition, they have a hard time because they cannot generally get people with the same genes. This is where twin studies come in. Twins studies are part of the method used in behaviour genetics, which includes all data that are genetically informative. E.g. siblings, adoptees, pedigree data etc. Researchers use this method to estimate the heritability of traits and to quantify the effect of a person 's shared environment (family) and unique environment (the individual events that shape a life) on a trait.

This research paper will evaluate the biological aspects of addictive substance or behavior and how it affects the brain and organs. Biological aspects include dopamine levels that are replaced in the brain due to the reward system being overtaken and the absorption rate of the drug once it is ingested will be discussed. The biological aspects are extensive and permanent if the individual does not get the help they need. Furthermore the clinical issues of addictive substance or behavior will be discussed along with medical treatments and ethical issues. This includes treatments such as counseling

No autosomal dominant disorders do not skip generations; they pass on through each generation. If parents have a child, their child will receive the same autosomal dominant disorders that the parents had. And the opposite, if the parent don’t have any autosomal dominant disorders, then the child won’t have

Cocaine’s mode of action has been shown to involve the dopamine receptors. This paper will discuss how cocaine affects dopamine receptors, the mode of addiction, how cocaine affects the frontal brain metabolic activities, as well as the role of excitatory amino acids in cocaine’s mechanism. I will also discuss how cocaine affects another system through its mechanism on the brain—the renin angiotensin system.

Firstly a biological approach was studied by Holland (1988) on genetic concordance between identical twins and non-identical twins. Holland was trying to discover the connection between anorexia and genetics through twins. Holland's study consisted of taking pairs of Monozygotic (identical) and Dizygotic (non-identical) with one of the twins suffering from anorexia;

As we continue to develop into an adult, we must look at our genetic factors to see what diseases we are at risk due to our family history. In my family we are at risk of hypertension which is also referred to as high blood pressure. This disease consists of “having abnormally elevated blood pressure which affects the way the heart pumps blood. A person diagnosed as hypertensive when his or her blood pressure is greater or equal to 140 nm Hg systolic pressure or 90 Hg diastolic pressure” (Whitbourne, 95). Behavioral changes that can meditate my genetic risk would consist of eating healthy and making sure I exercise enough to keep my blood flowing correctly. Several members from my father’s side have this disease and the maintenance that is

Twin studies are one of a very few ways to separate out the effect of nurture and nature by controlling for genetic inheritance. This is the most useful and the most common heritability research method mostly due to some serious weaknesses of other designs. For example, there is a very limited availability of participants in adoptions studies of MZ twins reared apart and it is difficult to draw any decisive conclusions about the heritability of some trait from simple family studies. There have been dozens of published classical MZ-DZ comparison studies examining various aspects of criminality and related

Family history like any other disease plays an important role for a risk factor. Women with a first degree family member meaning mother, sister or daughter have a three times higher risk of developing the disease. The percentage increases when two or more family member from a primary family have been already

          ‘’If someone's liver does not work, we blame it on the genes; if someone's brain does not work properly, we blame the school. It's actually more humane to think of the condition as genetic. For instance, you do not want to say that someone is born unpleasant, but sometimes that might be true’’James D. Watson’’. As you can see,as time has evolved genetic testing has become one of the most beneficial procedures to test diseases.In other words, it has become the most utilize procedure to test a condition of

The drug Cocaine alters chemical levels in the brain which can lead the user to have the ‘feel good’ factor.

Cocaine, on the other hand, has been found to have a profound effect on increased dopamine activity. Kennedy & Hanbauer (1983; cited in Karch, 2007) found a strong correlation between cocaine binding and the inhibition of dopamine uptake, and therefore proposed that dopamine transporters are binding sites for cocaine. Such research, which correlates strong reinforcing properties of cocaine with inhibition of dopamine transporters, suggests that cocaine has a more significant affect upon dopamine, than than it has upon serotonin and noradrenaline. The excessive role of dopamine can explain the high degree of pleasure that users of cocaine experience, as well as depression and cravings, which follow.

The complexity of the human brain creates mystery when determining the influence of neurophysiological factors and their role in the process of addiction. There is a proposed relationship between drug addiction and the mesolimbic dopamine system, with the mesolimbic pathway from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens considered the ‘reward centre’ of the human brain (Alcohol Rehab, 2011). A release of dopamine is necessary for ‘reward’ which is hypothesised to initiate the addiction cycle by providing positive reinforcement for drug self-administration (Feltenstein & See, 2009). Methamphetamine triggers the release of dopamine from synaptic vesicles which flood the synaptic cleft activating feelings of euphoria, well-being

between the variations in a person’s genetic code and their predisposition to disease. It was

“The overstimulation of this reward system, which normally responds to natural behaviors linked to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc.), produces euphoric effects in response to psychoactive drugs. This reaction sets in motion a reinforcing pattern that “teaches” people to repeat the rewarding behavior of abusing drugs ”(“Understanding Drug Abuse). Using addictive drugs floods the limbic brain with dopamine, taking it up to as much as five or ten times the normal level. A person with elevated dopamine levels now has a brain that begins to associate the substance with an outside neurochemical reward (“Your Brain on Drugs”). As a person continues to abuse drugs, the brain adapts to the overwhelming surges in dopamine by producing less dopamine or by reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the reward circuit. The result is a lessening of dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit, which reduces the abuser’s ability to enjoy the drugs, as well as the events in life that previously brought pleasure. The decrease in normal dopamine levels encourages the addict to keep abusing drugs in an attempt to bring the dopamine function back to normal, except now larger amounts of the drug are required to achieve the same dopamine high, an effect known as tolerance (“Understanding Drug Abuse ). That is what leads to the state of addiction, which leaves the person in a cycle of craving, using, withdrawal, and relapse.