Understanding addiction from a neuropsychological perspective

The conception of addiction as a chronic brain disease has become prevalent promoting the
idea that a person with an addictive disorder undergoes changes in the structure and functioning
of his or her brain. Unfortunately, when these brain changes occur, the individual loses selfcontrol
over his/her behavior. From this biomedical model of addiction, people who abuse
drugs are considered sick promoting their medical care and social consideration. Moreover,
from this idea of addiction as a brain disease, the individual is more likely to externalize the
reasons for relapses or dropouts during treatment showing little involvement in rehabilitation.
Due to these assumptions, in recent years there has been a proliferation of studies questioning
this model from methodological, ethical and sociological perspectives. Therefore, in this
review we will highlight the idea that not everything is in the brain and that we must consider
the interrelationship between the brain and the environment to provide a broader and more
comprehensive understanding of addiction. To this end, we propose that neuropsychology
and its study of cognitive processes is the best way to understand both the onset and the
course of addictive disorders.