ABSTRACT

Cognitive-motivational perspectives of addiction also propose that prioritising of appetitive reward-related information is complicit in the development and maintenance of substance abuse. This proposal appears to be supported by research findings showing that adolescents, who demonstrate a generally enhanced appetitive bias, report greater amounts of substance. Human adolescents and their animal counterparts share numerous similarities in hormonal, behavioural and brain changes that include alterations in reward-related neurocircuitry. Reward is a central component for driving incentive-based learning, eliciting appropriate responses to stimuli, and the development of goal-directed behaviours. Motivational theories regarding drug use and addiction have made contrasting predictions with respect to how drug users may differentially recruit brain areas, such as the nucleus accumbens/ventral striatum, in response to non-drug rewards. Adolescence is a period when young people begin to engage in alcohol use and drug-taking behaviour.