Systems Biology and Addiction

Abstract

The onset of addiction is marked with drug induced positive experiences that keep being repeated. During that time, adaptation occurs and addiction is stabilized. Interruption of those processes induces polysymptomatic withdrawal syndromes. Abstinence is accompanied by risks of relapse. These features of addiction suggest adaptive brain dynamics with common pathways in complex neuronal networks. Addiction research has used animal models, where some of those phenomena could be reproduced, to find correlates of addictive behavior. The major thrust of those approaches has been on the involvement of genes and proteins. Recently, an enormous amount of data has been obtained by high throughput technologies in these fields. Therefore, (Computational) "Systems Biology" had to be implemented as a new approach in molecular biology and biochemistry. Conceptually, Systems Biology can be understood as a field of theoretical biology that tries to identify patterns in complex data sets and that reconstructs the cell and cellular networks as complex dynamic, self-organizing systems. This approach is embedded in systems science as an interdisciplinary effort to understand complex dynamical systems and belongs to the field of theoretical neuroscience (Computational Neuroscience). Systems biology, in a similar way as computational neuroscience is based on applied mathematics, computer-based computation and experimental simulation. In terms of addiction research, building up "computational molecular systems biology of the (addicted) neuron" could provide a better molecular biological understanding of addiction on the cellular and network level. Some key issues are addressed in this article.

Episodic Memories and Their Relevance for Psychoactive Drug Use and Addiction

“…Thereby, the brain areas activated during actual drug exposure often overlap with those areas activated during presentation of drug-associated cues (e.g., Breiter et al, 1997; Childress et al, 1999). These findings support the view that psychoactive drugs do not only functionally interact with the brain reward system, but also with other memory systems – if not with the whole brain (Tretter et al, 2009), thus causing acute responses and plastic changes which are similar to those observed during normal learning (Kelley, 2004). …”

Behavioral genetics in antisocial spectrum disorders and psychopathy: A review of the recent literature

“…Undertaking a systems approach to the biology of complex illnesses such as antisocial spectrum disorders and psychopathy, using an interdisciplinary research team, is most likely to be useful in determining how individual genetic factors impact neural networks and ultimately behavior (Thomas et al, 2009;Tretter, Gebicke-Haerter, Albus, an der Heiden, & Schwegler, 2009). Various laboratory tests (Derijk, 2009) and imaging technologies (Demaree et al, 2009) have been employed to identify intermediate phenotypes to better understand the downstream differences that might be attributable to specific polymorphisms.…”

A Computational Hypothesis for Allostasis: Delineation of Substance Dependence, Conventional Therapies, and Alternative Treatments

“…The present investigation develops a multiscale computational model to further explore the allostatic theory of addiction (2) in terms of a KR model (48) in alignment with the exploratory review in Ref. (80), and aims to engage hypothesis-driven research (49) for addiction and allostasis. Such an approach can facilitate the detection of ambiguous knowledge that requires future biological and computational exploration in order to better understand this disease.…”