CASE STUDY COMPARISON: ADDICTION & DEPRESSION

The case study that I found on addiction and depression from the Laguardia Library Database is titled, “Critical appraisal and systematic review of genes linked with cocaine addiction, depression and anxiety”. This journal was also peer reviewed so it’s deemed credible. In this case study, abuse of the substance cocaine was primarily focused on. The connection between genetic factors and their association with addiction, depression, and anxiety were studied. People who are more vulnerable will likely fall victim to drug abuse as a way to combat stress. Peer pressure and both mental and emotional stress increase the likelihood of serious psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, and addiction. The advancement of technology has also impacted our mental health and made major changes in our lifestyle. The stress levels amongst all age groups have significantly increased and they will continue to rise over the upcoming years. Young adults often deal with a lot of peer pressure and to suppress this stress and pressure, they have a tendency to be drawn towards substance abuse and drug addiction. According to the journal, “Addiction may involve any of the several abusive substances or habits; alcohol, inhalants, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, nicotine, and gambling (1)”. All of these things activate the reward-seeking pathway of the brain, especially the monoamine dopaminergic pathway. These same addictions have triggering effects on conditions like depression, hypertension, and anxiety. Depression is a constant feeling of sadness and low-self worth that affects normal day to day activities and how a person feels, thinks, and behaves. The effects of depression can be sleep dysregulation, sexual disinterest, lack of appetite, incompetence, social withdrawal, and so many more. There are major connections between depression and addiction because a depressed person may attempt self-medication by consuming the substance of abuse as a way to escape being overwhelmed from inner turmoil and uneasiness. During the case study, the questions focused on were: “How does one condition lead to another one? Which genes are significantly implicated in the development of anxiety, depression, and addiction against cocaine consumption? How many genes are common in anxiety, depression, and addiction development against cocaine intake? (2)”.

In Transcendent Kingdom, Gifty is a PhD student who’s studying the neurological basis of addiction and depression with a goal to make sense of her brother Nana’s heroin overdose. Nana was battling all three conditions, anxiety, depression, and addiction which ended up resulting in his demise. Gift uses mice as the participants in her study. She trains the mice to press a lever for a reward, she then gives them Ensure. She also changes the variables to observe the mice behavior when the reward is taken away or when mild shocks are administered to them. Her goal is to examine dopaminergic pathways and determine how reward-seeking behavior and impulse control relate to the chemistry in the brain. While observing her study, she notices that the mice continuously press the lever even when there’s no reward in sight which shows addictive behavior. The mice continue to seek the reward even with negative consequences. Some of the mice appear depressed and they stop seeking the reward, mimicking loss of interest in activities they once enjoyed. Gifty observes variability among the mice in response to the stimuli, depicting the complexity of addiction and depression.

Both the case study that Gifty conducts and the real experiment try to bridge the connection with addiction and depression. The real life study uses cocaine and Gifty uses Ensure instead. In both cases the models show the dopamine rush is responsible for causing addiction. When the participant no longer gets the intense dopamine rush, they either seek a higher amount of the reward or they get depressed. This is how Nana fell victim to a drug overdose because once his brain built up a tolerance for heroin, he had no choice but to increase the amount of drugs in order to get that reward-like feeling. In sum, this increase eventually caused him to overdose and die. Both experiments prove that addiction usually stems from one of the forms of depression and people want to feel numb to their pain and trauma.

Kaushik, S., Ahmad, F., Choudhary, S., Mathkor, D. M., Mishra, B. N., Singh, V., & Haque, S. (2023). Critical appraisal and systematic review of genes linked with cocaine addiction, depression and anxiety. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 152, Article 105270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105270

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