Psychomotor stimulant addiction: a neural systems perspective.

The reinforcing (rewarding) effects of psychomotor stimulants (cocaine and amphetamine) depend on the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system innervating the nucleus accumbens (Wise, 1981; for review, see Koob, 1992), perhaps especially the shell subregion (Bassareo and Di Chiara, 1997). Prominent theories of addiction are based on adaptations associated with both sensitization to and withdrawal from repeated exposure to psychomotor stimulants (Robinson and Berridge, 1993; Koob and Le Moal, 2001). Great progress has been achieved toward revealing the nature of cellular and molecular adaptations in animal models of addiction (Hyman and Malenka, 2001; Koob and Le Moal, 2001; Nestler, 2001), many of which are similar,…