Neuroscience

Addiction relapse might be thwarted by turning off brain trigger

(Medical Xpress)—Researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at UC San Francisco have been able to identify and deactivate a brain pathway linked to memories that cause alcohol cravings in rats, a finding ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Alcohol-induced brain damage continues after alcohol is stopped

Although the harmful effects of alcohol on the brain are widely known, the structural changes observed are very heterogeneous. In addition, diagnostic markers are lacking to characterize brain damage induced by alcohol, especially ...

Health

Quitting smoking easier for social media users

Smoking is a major public health problem, killing approximately 443,000 people every year in the United States. Quitting smoking can have a profound effect on a person's health, but it is also one of the hardest addictions ...

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Abstinence

Abstinence is a voluntary restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, or abstention from alcohol or food. The practice can arise from religious prohibitions or practical considerations. Abstinence may also refer to drugs. For example you can abstain from smoking. Abstinence has diverse forms. Commonly it refers to a temporary or partial abstinence from food, as in fasting. In the twelve-step program of Overeaters Anonymous abstinence is the term for refraining from compulsive eating, akin in meaning to sobriety for alcoholics. Because the regimen is intended to be a conscious act, freely chosen to enhance life, abstinence is sometimes distinguished from the psychological mechanism of repression. The latter is an unconscious state, having unhealthy consequences. Freud termed the channeling of sexual energies into other more culturally or socially acceptable activities, "sublimation".

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