Why Are Some More Prone To Addiction Than Others

Science Daily released this story that may illuminate some of the factors that create such wildly different addiction behaviors. They may be on to something here....it isn't what you are...it's what you get from it. Some folks are just wired different than others and their needs are different as well. (h/t to Mike at Corr Sent)

Science Daily — For years, scientists have known that some people are biologically more susceptible to drug addiction than others, but they have only been able to speculate why.

In the August 15, 2007 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at the University of Chicago report on a study that may help answer this question.

They discovered that rats most likely to self-administer addictive drugs had a particular receptor in the brain that is more responsive than the same receptor in rats least likely to self-administer addictive drugs.

This receptor, known as the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), increases excitability within in the brain's reward centers. In the animals that were more likely to take addictive drugs, the effects of these receptors were much stronger, leading to more profound excitation of the cells and pathways associated with reward.

Stress, and the associated increases in stress hormones, will promote drug-taking behavior regardless of whether an animal is more or less susceptible, say the researchers. They showed that stress also increases the responses of nAChRs within the brain's reward areas.

Science Daily