Addiction, a powerful form of memory
I wish I could forget my addiction
The basis of the story is a summary of ongoing scientific investigation. The fiction part of the story are that the characters (voices in the story are not real people).
I have kept in touch with my friends at Mindsinplay.com hoping that their mind-brain consortium might help me. Nothing has changed for me. I am still way overweight, drink as heavily as ever and have even managed to develop an irresistible appetite for cocaine. My life is in ruins and I don’t know how to get off the addiction track. Just because I know where I was going, that it was dangerous, destructive didn’t stop me from resisting the pull of the sirens of pleasure. Anything new that you may have learned that can help me?
Dear RTM
Don’t despair. We do know how hard it is to break the chains of addiction. We sent your note out and then started to search our science research grab bag. Some help may be on the way although it is always tough to translate basic science findings into practical applications. You know that and you also are not naïve when it comes to brain science and what it can teach us about all kinds of phenomena.
Let me start by telling you that I am glad that we have started to catalogue and file our mind-brain science library of articles. I just stumbled on an article written by Steve Hyman, the renowned neuroscientist and provost of Harvard University describing addiction as a form of ‘extreme memory’ and as ‘pathological learning’. When I (Alfred Fahrar) first read his review paper, Addiction: A disease of learning and memory’ which appeared in 2006 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, I did not fully appreciate its significance. I do now.
First of all thoughtful reviews of complex areas of mind-brain science are particularly valuable. We are overwhelmed with findings so it is all the more important to have someone organize diverse findings and then provides a perspective that provides a productive new perspective on complex problems such as addiction.
Lots of scientists have struggled with explaining addiction phenomena such as withdrawal, relapse not only short but also long periods of abstinence, dependence, craving, and the utter destructiveness of becoming addicted. Steve Hyman postulates that addiction can be seen as a very powerful, extreme kind of learning and memory. The fact that addicting substances triggers the powerfully rewarding brain dopamine makes super learning likely.The release of dopamine is a way the brain labels an event or experience as important and significant and not to be forgotten. Repeated use of an addicting drug provides the opportunity to over learn that a drug (or food for the chronic overweight overeater) is powerfully rewarding. And so we are well on our way to establish a treasured long term memory.
If this scenario is what actually happens then we might consider unlearning (overwriting) old memories with more adaptive new memories. Perhaps drugs can be used to break down old memories not just in addicts but also for unlearning phobias. Another parallel strategy is to manipulate genes that are involved in establishing long term memory (long term learning).
There is more to the story and it involves the role of genes, gene expression via epigenetic mechanisms of transcriptional control, and maintenance of synaptic connections required for long-term memory (changes in behavior). In particular the protein complex chromatin is involved in condensing and organizing genomic DNA which is part of the cascade of events that are involved in epigenetics. I know this is a mouthful but one of the postings on our site gives a simple view of epigenetics which is the name giventhe complex set of processes that are involved in turning genes on and off.
This is a science story that is current and exciting research theme in neuroscience and may have some real potential for applications as new treatments for psychiatric conditions which includes addictions. Eric Nestler, Marcello Wood, and Ruth Barrett are just three of many scientists publishing work that about the relationships between genes, epigenetics, chromatin and long-term memory. Their published work is rather technical but I think you can follow the basic logic of the published work. As new research findings in this area appear we will let you know about it.
Continue to stay connected to our community. Sorry we are so physically far away but so close via the internet.
Take care
Gimi and Alfred
Submitted to Gimi Kahn from EV, Toledo Ohio
I am obese, 80lbs. overweight and each year I grow fatter. Like so many of my ’landsmen’ I have tried diets and they work for awhile and then all hell breaks loose and I gain the weight back again. It is a huge struggle and I am losing the fight. Should I give up? Help!!
Perhaps I need to have my stomach stapled but that means I have been defeated in my struggles to leave my eating addiction behind me. Is it weakness, a lack of will power? I sometimes think so but in so many other areas of my life I am effective and disciplined. The ads that are made of combinations of claims, smiling faces, and the prospect of easy diets with the promise of pounds melting away are such seductive lies and yet I keep coming back for more disappointments.
What is the eating addiction all about and of course it is an addiction. I have read several of the posted stories and news snapshots on your website and of course I also appreciate the extent of the obesity problem in our society. I am not alone when I realize that relapse in food addicts is about the same as it is for hard core drug addicts and alcoholics (close to 90% of us ‘fall off the wagon” over and over). I read a study published in Nature Neuroscience on March 28, 2010 (authored by Paul Kenny of the Scripts Research Institute) which showed that rats, just like food addicts like me, are delighted to stuff themselves with fatty treats such as bacon, sausage (my favorite) chocolate (light and dark) and even cheesecake. I was also not surprised to learn in that article and others like it that eating, just like sex, drugs, and winning a prize in an essay writing contest triggers the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine which is the neurochemical that is the lead player in our reward system. Controlling my eating and losing weight is very hard and the way my brain responds to food lets me know why this is the case. HELP!
Update of correspondence in response to the web posting below entitled ‘Is an addiction a powerful form of memory?”
2 May 2011
Dear Gimi Kahn
I am sure you will remember me. I am EV, from Toledo Ohio. You wrote me a reply to my request for help in dealing with my alcohol and food addiction. I appreciated your concern and found your comments and notes about seeing addictions as super memories interesting and perhaps helpful (if not now maybe later). My note to you and your response to me was posted on the mindsinplay.com website with the thought that others might be helped by your perspective on my problem (shared with millions).
Last week I read an article that left me discouraged (once again).
The article dealt with anorexia and was published in the April 26, 2011 issue of the New York Times Science News section. The article, written by Abby Ellin is a downer because what it seems to say is that eating disorders (too much or too little) are perhaps incapable of being cured. The author of the article describes the struggles of Dr. Suzanne Dooley-Hash, a emergency room physician with a history of anorexia. Even years after she presumably recovered from her illness specter of her disease haunts her. She is high functioning but then asks what it really means to be high functioning with anorexia sitting in the background of her mind ready to pounce. What does it mean to recover from an eating disorder? Maybe, like alcoholics, eating disorder patients can hope for remission but not a cure. Maybe an addiction or a disorder like anorexia can respond to a treatment that allows for recovery but never a cure. I suppose that is true in treating cancer. A treatment can be responsible for a recovery and remission of a cancer but can one ever really erase the cell programmed with information for making cancer cells. Does the body (and in this case the brain part of our body) ever forget our addictions? Do we ever forget the time we opened the backdoor of our house and walked out and only then remembered that the staircase outside that leads down to the ground was removed for repair? Maybe our nemesis is a super memory just like the kind described by Steve Hyman in you posting of “Is an addiction a powerful form of memory?” on your website.