The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry
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Aust N Z J Psychiatry · Dec 2007
Review Comparative StudyUnderstanding drug addiction: a neuropsychological perspective.
The purpose of the present review is to describe the neuropsychological correlates of long-term substance abuse and to discuss the findings within the context of premorbid vulnerabilities, comorbidity and adolescent neurodevelopment. The authors critically review key findings from the neuropsychological literature related to the long-term sequelae of alcohol, cannabis, inhalant, opiates, psychostimulants and ecstasy use. Leading electronic databases such as PubMed were searched to identify relevant studies published in the past 20 years. ⋯ In some instances these deficits are dose dependent, implying that they are a direct consequence of prolonged drug exposure. However, comorbid behavioural, personality and mental health problems are common among drug-using populations and are associated with similar neuropsychological deficits. Presented herein is a neuropsychological model of addictive behaviour that highlights the complex interplay between cognition, brain maturation, psychopathology and drug exposure.
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A short account is given of the development of concepts of soul, mind and brain in order to place in historical context the subject of neuropsychiatry. A selection of primary and secondary historical sources is used to trace development of these concepts. Beginning with the spirits of Animism in the 3rd millennium BC, the Greek invention of the soul and its properties, of thymos (emotion), menos (rage) and nous (intellect) are then traced from the time of Homer, in which the soul does not last the death of the body, to Plato in the 4th century BC who argued that the soul, incorporating the nous (now called mind) is incorporeal and immortal. ⋯ The mind is not as either Plato of Descartes would have it, nor is it equivalent to the brain, for talk of the mind is a manner of talking about human psychological powers and their exercise, as in 'mind your step' (watch where you are going), 'keep that in mind' (remember it). It is suggested that the history of the concept of mind shows that a human being has a corporeal body and a mind, that is, a range of psychological capacities. It is the role of neuropsychiatry to identify the changes in the corporeal that need to be put aright when these psychological capacities go awry.