Browsing by Subject "päihteet"

Background. Drug addiction is a worldwide health issue. Criminalization of drug use and scare tactics do not help addicts. Previous studies suggest that negative life experiences increase the risk of addiction while positive life experiences reduce it. In a laboratory environment, environmental enrichment is one way to model positive life experiences. It provides social stimulation and exercise for animal subjects Methods. This thesis is based on a review article from 2010 which suggested that environmental enrichment acts as a neurobiological and functional opposite to stress. I reviewed 17 articles that were published after said article from 2011 to 2015 which researched the effects of environmental enrichment to prevention and cure of drug addiction and compared their results to the 2010 review article. I also hypothesized reasons for contradictory results. Results. Environmental enrichment prevented drug addiction and eased withdrawal. It also prevented drug sensitization and cross-sensitization in some of the reviewed articles. Losing the enriched environment acts as an independent stressor which increases cravings and risk of relapse. Short-term environmental exposure did not have a lasting protective effect. Longer exposures did seem to have a longer-lasting protective effect especially animal subjects had free use of a running wheel. Without the possibility to exercise the effect of environmental enrichment was modest.