Читать книгу Overcoming Internet Addiction For Dummies - David N. Greenfield - Страница 52

All addictions are centered in the brain and are reflected in our behavior in the form of habits, so the brain is the logical place to begin the investigation into why children and teens are particularly susceptible to addiction.

Simply put, what happens in the developing brain to increase susceptibility to addiction is that the pleasure and reward centers (in the limbic system) begin to fire heavily before the brain’s mechanisms to buffer that desire for pleasure are fully formed. In other words, desire and the capacity to feel pleasure (through increased dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens) are off the charts during adolescence — and at the same time the neurological capacity for good judgment and self-control (found in the frontal lobes) is just starting to develop. It’s like hitting the gas pedal but without a set of brakes! When the desire for pleasure exceeds the capacity for self-control, you have the perfect environment for developing addictions.

In the following sections, I take a deeper dive into the pleasure centers and control centers of the brain to provide a clearer picture of the biological factors that can drive the development of addiction in children and teens. I also explain the role that sex hormones play in compounding the problem.