The persistence of maladaptive memory: Addiction, drug memories and anti-relapse treatments

Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder, characterised by the long-term propensity of addicted individuals to relapse. A major factor that obstructs the attainment of abstinence is the persistence of maladaptive drug-associated memories, which can maintain drug-seeking and taking behaviour and promote unconscious relapse of these habits. Thus, addiction can be conceptualised as a disorder of aberrant learning of the formation of strong instrumental memories linking actions to drug-seeking and taking outcomes that ultimately are expressed as persistent stimulus–response habits; of previously neutral environmental stimuli that become associated with drug highs (and/or withdrawal states) through pavlovian conditioning, and of the subsequent interactions between pavlovian and instrumental memories to influence relapse behaviour. Understanding the psychological, neurobiological and molecular basis of these drug memories may produce new methods of pro-abstinence, anti-relapse treatments for addiction.

► Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder.
► Maladaptive instrumental and pavlovian memories increase the risk of relapse.
► Memories can be manipulated by disrupting reconsolidation or facilitating extinction.
► Many different drug memories form in addicted individuals.
► Different drug memories are differentially susceptible to manipulation.