Understanding Addiction Through the Lens of Brain-Computer Interface Technology
Since ancient times, people have been experiencing supernormal stimuli from drugs. That’s right, since the start of recorded history humans have notoriously been subject to being ‘druggies’. Our biology is just susceptible to it, as you will read later on. From Cannabis in Ancient Egypt to Opium in Ancient Sumeria to Psilocybin(Mushrooms) in Ancient North Africa and many many more. However, drug use wasn’t always recreational. Telltale signs of addiction were written down and described in Ancient Roman texts. These descriptions were the first ‘studies’ done into addiction research. Granted, this research was heavily based on anecdotal analysis which, however, explains how the worldwide stigma related to addiction evolved.
For the longest time addiction was seen as a personal choice, a personality defect, or worst of all a curse. Addicts were seen as lazy, impulsive, grumpy people that only live for their drug of choice and were doomed for the rest of their lives with this “curse”.
However, we can’t really blame anyone for viewing addicts in this manner. We didn’t know any better! Our understanding of the brain today is far different from that of Ancient Egypt.
Today, we know that Addiction is a mental illness that is treatable. We know the science behind it and how one may beat addiction.
But can we know more? This article is about just that. I’ll be uncovering the science behind addiction and how we can leverage new technologies such as brain-computer interfaces to deepen our current understanding of addiction and possibly take action.
What is Addiction?
“Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.”
— American Society of Addiction Medicine
Addiction begins with the substance. This substance can be anything. This is why in modern neuroscience and neurobiology, addiction is often referred to as substance abuse disorder or just addiction and not necessarily ‘drug addiction’. The substance could be marijuana, nicotine, alcohol, video games, pornography, TikTok, or even romance novels. The bottom line is that all of these ‘substances’ provide the user with supernormal amounts of stimuli that they don't otherwise experience in their day-to-day lives. Users may describe the way they feel when taking their substance as “a euphoric high”.
Users will use their ‘substances’ repeatedly to experience this same euphoric high. But the caveat is that the brain is an adaptive organ so it ends up adapting to the stimuli and becomes desensitized to all other forms of stimuli. Life sucks, everything and everyone sucks, but their drug of choice is all that matters and is the only thing that gives them even a semblance of joy. Boom! And that's how addicts are made.
Brain Chemistry
To better understand what really goes on during addiction we must take a closer look into the brain.
The brain is divided into 3 main sections: The cerebrum, the brainstem, and the cerebellum. For our purposes of understanding addiction, we will mainly be focusing on the cerebrum See Figure 3.
Deep within the cerebrum is our limbic system. Our limbic system, see figure 2, is primarily responsible for our body’s stress response and autonomic nervous systems. For example, our limbic system controls our fight, flight, or freeze response, our involuntary bodily movements(eye-twitching, digestion, sexual arousal, etc), and our reward and motivation centers.
The limbic system contains two structures that are primarily related to addiction: the basal ganglia and the amygdala. The basal ganglia are often referred to as our brain’s ‘reward circuit’. While the amygdala is referred to as our emotional and stress response.
When we do regular pleasurable activities like eating or hanging out with friends or watching our favorite movie, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released. This neurotransmitter release, in supernormal quantities and frequencies, is what is often referred to as the ‘euphoric highs’ from drug use.
But, as mentioned prior, the brain is an adaptive organ. The dopamine receptors get fired up enough times that it will adapt to the presence of the drug. The dopamine receptors end up desensitized and it makes it hard to feel pleasure from things like hanging out with your friends or watching your favorite movie. They just don't feel good anymore. Since the dopamine receptors are desensitized, there is a low amount of dopamine in the brain of the addict. And because of the low dopamine, the addict will use their drug of choice in an attempt to feel better but all it’s doing is lowering their baseline levels of dopamine and making their condition worse.
“Addiction is the progressive narrowing of pleasure”
— Dr. Andrew Huberman, Professor of Neurobiology and Opthalmology at Stanford Medical School
Another structure of the limbic system is the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is responsible for maintaining homeostasis in the brain. When addicts impulsively consume supernormal amounts of stimuli on a frequent basis, it makes it harder for the brain to go back to normal and achieve homeostasis. This in turn makes the amygdala fire up and makes responses to emotion well…more emotional.
Okay so now we know an addict suffers from depression, anxiety, poor stress response, and has an overall low motivation for everything. Could it get any worse? Unfortunately, yes.
The pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for problem-solving and task management, is being affected by the brain's chemical imbalance, so an addict is also prone to making bad decisions. Bad decisions like “Oh wow I feel horrible right now because of my addiction…let me use my drug again so I feel a little better temporarily”. This is the plight of an addict, a hamster wheel lined with temporary pleasures and elongated misery. Addicts are unfortunately stuck in this loop, however, they can break this cycle.
Breaking the Cycle
In order to reach homeostasis and restore their chemical brain balance, addicts have to abstain from using their drugs for an extended period of time.
However, as previously mentioned, addicts are in a constant loop wherein they feel miserable without their drug and in turn return to it to feel slightly better. So what happens when you take that crutch away entirely?
This is where withdrawal symptoms come in. And where our old friend “Worldwide Stigma” comes into play. From anywhere from 2 weeks to a span of a couple of months, an addict will experience withdrawal symptoms from abstaining from their drug. Mental symptoms can range from depression, anxiety, loss of appetite, insomnia, lack of motivation and discipline, irritability, negative thoughts, and lack of concentration. Physical symptoms may include but are not limited to: tremors, fatigue, and nausea.
Nevertheless, if an addict sticks to the process and gets through the withdrawal period, it is almost guaranteed that they can live life how they lived it before becoming an addict and have normal brain chemistry.
*Some severe cases of drug abuse with cocaine or methamphetamine can result in an anhedonic state(inability to feel pleasure) after recovering from addiction.
However
How can an addict know where they exactly are on their road to recovery? How can we make brain scans cost-effective and readily available? How can we personalize addiction treatment to make recovery as efficient and as effective as possible? Is there a way we can just get rid of addiction completely?
Through brain-computer interface technology, we can create a future that’s addict free in ways never before thought. Before I go into some solutions, let's go over the basics.
Brain-Computer Interfaces
Brain-Computer Interfaces or BCIS are systems that allow communication between the brain and various machines
Types of BCIS
- Non-Invasive BCI
- These BCIS use sensors that are placed on the scalp. These sensors measure electrical activity produced by the brain. Some examples of these BCIS are EEG, electroencephalography, and MEG, magnetoencephalography.
- EEG caps are popular due to their cost and portability but have a low signal accuracy due to all of the noise blocking the signal( The skull, environment shifts, muscle contractions, etc).
2. Semi-Invasive BCI
- Electrodes are placed directly on the exposed surface of the brain. An example of this method would be ECoG or Electrocorticography.
3. Invasive BCIS
- These BCIS place electrodes directly into the cortex of the brain and as a result are far more accurate than the methods presented above. However, as research on implanted sensors is in its infancy, invasive BCIS may prove to be harmful in the long run.
- Companies like Neuralink are using Invasive BCIS to conduct their research.
Non-invasive methods such as Electroencephalography prove to be more popular to due their cost, portability, and safety.
However, strides are being made in the invasive BCI sector to make them just as safe and cost-effective as non-invasive methods.
How do they Work?
BCIS takes some neuroimaging hardware, for instance, an electroencephalography cap, that provides a recording of the electrical activity of the brain from the surface of the scalp.
The data is then amplified and viewed on a device in real-time. The data from BCIS are rhythmic and reflect neural oscillations. The data then gets classified using various machine learning algorithms to understand the patterns of the data. From there we can understand the implication of various events and phenomena of the brain.
How Can BCIS Be Leveraged Now to Help Addicts?
Currently, we understand how one may get rid of addiction and heal but the unanimous truth amongst neuroscientists is that recovery from addiction is personal and it depends per person. Some addicts may take 2 weeks for their brains to fully recover and their withdrawal symptoms may not be so bad. However, some addicts may take 7 months to fully recover and may go through all the horrid withdrawal symptoms.
A solution to this would be to use brain-computer interfaces to track the progress of addicts during recovery to provide a personalized road map for their brains to reach homeostasis.
This could be done by creating an EEG that can be worn daily and an app that tracks the brain throughout the day. The user can corroborate or even help the data by marking down within the app when they feel withdrawals and what they are feeling. The data would not only help the user by keeping track of their progress but it would also help all addicts and the field of BCIS by providing input data that can help current machine-learning models to become more accurate. Consistent brain scans can help the user see exactly how their brain is healing and even motivate them to push through the withdrawals and not just survive but thrive through them.
The only problem would be that our current hardware provides a signal that is too weak to derive any understanding from and/or is too expensive.
“Countless imaging studies have reported differences in brain structure and function between people with addictive disorders and those without them. Meta-analyses of structural data show that alcohol addiction is associated with gray matter losses in the prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum, insula, and posterior cingulate cortex [57], and similar results have been obtained in stimulant-addicted individuals [58]. Meta-analysis of functional imaging studies has demonstrated common alterations in dorsal striatal, and frontal circuits engaged in reward and salience processing, habit formation, and executive control, across different substances and task paradigms [59].” — Markus Heilig et al 2021
Current companies that are working on technology similar to this are Kernel, Muse, and Neurable. Each company is working on its own external BCI hardware that gives biofeedback to the user. However, none of the biofeedback is being used to treat addiction.
I do hope to see in the near future that our current understanding of BCIS is being applied to our current understanding of neuroscience and addiction recovery. Maybe I‘ll be the one to apply it 😉.
Final Words
BCI models are held back by our current hardware, understanding of psychology and neuroscience, machine learning models, and more. But companies and research laboratories are actively working in this field to change that.
In the future, we may be able to get rid of addiction completely with BCIS. We may be able to store and recall memories at will. We may be able to readily cure all forms of mental illness and disorders. We may be able to perfectly describe what we are thinking and feeling to another person without having to verbalize it. We may be able to control all our devices with just the power of our minds. We may help restore sight to the blind. Or help those that are paralyzed from the neck down walk.
BCI technology will look unrecognizable in 20 years. And I can’t wait.
Hey, I’m Ahad! I’m a 17-year-old high school senior living in NYC. I write about BCIS, emerging tech, and more. Support and follow me along my journey here!
