Take it or Leave it?

The best chemical dependency rehab is to not pick up at all.  This can be difficult because most people feel they can stop.  Interestingly this may be the case for some but not others…

Take it or Leave it

The science community has been researching the function of newborn neurons, to help understand their possible role in psychiatric and neurological diseases such as mood disorders, schizophrenia and epilepsy.  This research is simply incredible. The scientific community may possibly be on the verge of understanding, treating or even preventing life-ruining brain-based diseases — including one that affects an estimated 23 million Americans: drug and alcohol addiction. 
In a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Michele Noonan, a University of Texas neuroscience graduate student in the lab of Amelia Eisch, shows that a lack of neurogenesis, or birth of new neurons, in the adult rat can actually cause drug addiction.  The very idea that if an individual is not producing a normal amount of  new neurons, it leaves them susceptible to addiction is groundbreaking.  This is the strongest evidence yet that there are real biological reasons why some people might be more vulnerable to addiction than others, and gives us a better understanding of the role these very important generating neurons might play in the brain.  This also implies that perhaps in the future there may be methods for testing for the rate of production and practicing preventative measures to not pick up that first drink, hit, or pill….because you would actually “know better”.