Drug Addiction is a chronic disease prone to relapse, imposing a huge challenge to the success of its treatment, especially the maintenance of abstinence. Although well-established pharmacologic treatments and bio-psychosocial therapies are available to treat most substance- dependent disorders, these show often only modest or mixed success in clinical sets. Furthermore, these approaches are often focused on managing acute or protracted abstinence rather than the control of craving and/or relapses. Thus, efforts are needed to develop alternative or adjunctive approaches that could help to improve the control of drug use.
Over the last years, neuromodulatory Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) has shown initial encouraging results regarding add-on treatment in drug addiction, especially when applied over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Although clinical application of these techniques is suggested to improve the treatment of drug addiction and other neuropsychiatric diseases, the underlying mechanisms of action remain largely unknown. The latter span from the impact of drugs on human brain physiology to questions how this might be altered by NIBS, and thus lead to therapeutic effects, and optimized stimulation protocols.
This Research Topic will feature recent and emerging pre-clinical and clinical evidence demonstrating how NIBS may ultimately be helpful for the treatment of drug addiction.
Underlying mechanisms spanning from neuronal, molecular, neuropharmacological, to behavioral and imaging levels of analysis, from basic neuroscience research in animal models to functional electrophysiological and imaging studies in human subjects will be especially highlighted
Drug Addiction is a chronic disease prone to relapse, imposing a huge challenge to the success of its treatment, especially the maintenance of abstinence. Although well-established pharmacologic treatments and bio-psychosocial therapies are available to treat most substance- dependent disorders, these show often only modest or mixed success in clinical sets. Furthermore, these approaches are often focused on managing acute or protracted abstinence rather than the control of craving and/or relapses. Thus, efforts are needed to develop alternative or adjunctive approaches that could help to improve the control of drug use.
Over the last years, neuromodulatory Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) has shown initial encouraging results regarding add-on treatment in drug addiction, especially when applied over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Although clinical application of these techniques is suggested to improve the treatment of drug addiction and other neuropsychiatric diseases, the underlying mechanisms of action remain largely unknown. The latter span from the impact of drugs on human brain physiology to questions how this might be altered by NIBS, and thus lead to therapeutic effects, and optimized stimulation protocols.
This Research Topic will feature recent and emerging pre-clinical and clinical evidence demonstrating how NIBS may ultimately be helpful for the treatment of drug addiction.
Underlying mechanisms spanning from neuronal, molecular, neuropharmacological, to behavioral and imaging levels of analysis, from basic neuroscience research in animal models to functional electrophysiological and imaging studies in human subjects will be especially highlighted
