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*** produces structural and functional changes
in the brain, which favour addiction.
Researchers from the UJI have analyzed how drug affects
cognitive and motivacional processes:
two processes linked to use and addiction.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging,
the brain of abstinent *** addicts and people without addiction
have been studied while they performed processes
of motivational and cognitive control.
-The *** use that ends up in addiction
affects at motivational and cognitive level in an individual.
Motivational, because it motivates the use,
which has a reflect in the brain,
and cognitive, because it alters cognitive functions
that help to stop the use.
Researches show that, sometimes, cognitive activity
is lower in *** addicts.
Regarding the processing of motivational incentives,
the study has analyzed the brain
before the possibility of earning money.
The response was more reduced in *** addicts
and it varied according to the time that the person had been
in treatment or abstinent.
The reduction in the ability to control behaviour
connected to the loss of motivation in front of other stimulus
favours addiction and complicates detoxification.
-The obtained results
at a motivational and cogitive level are experimental
that enable us to suggest or speculate
on possible applications
of psychotherapeutic
or pharmacological treatments.
The study is carried out through the Spanish National Plan on Drugs
with the collaboration of Addictive Behaviour Units
in San Agustín, La Vall d' Uixó and Hospital de Sagunto.