Hypofrontality defines a reduction in prefrontal executive functioning (your 'thinking cap') due to prolonged mental illness or addiction. It has been described as a reduction ("hypo") in synaptic effectiveness (thought processing) in the prefrontal lobe ("frontality"), resulting in poor decision-making and an increase in impulsive behaviors.
Hypofrontality has also been described as "brain shrinkage" and studies have shown that substance and behavioral addictions result in a reduction of gray matter in the frontal cortex, thereby, exacerbating symptoms of mental illness and resulting in frequent relapses with chemical and behavioral addictions.
Keep in mind, behavioral addictions include instinct-based food addictions as well as sex/porn addictions and result in the same, if not worse, hypofrontal conditions. Completely end your sugar addiction and you will experience the same prefrontal brain fog that the heroin addict experiences, simply because your brain is genetically hard-wired to experience dopamine stimulation (seeker/motivational brain chemical) in seeking food and sex. The brain is not hard-wired to seek heroin and this makes instinctual drives more conducive to addiction/dependency, and experienced by many more individuals, than chemical addictions.
In my work with chemical and behavioral addictions, individuals in withdrawal actually claim feeling a numbing discomfort in the forehead area and a sense of brain fog with an inability to focus and think clearly (as well as a unending list of other WD symptoms). Yet, once the brain nominally reboots, providing relief from the withdrawal process, the neural circuits light up like a Xmas tree demanding the chemical or behavior be attained and this is called craving. Many will succumb to the craving primarily because the prefrontal cortex is impaired and executive functioning decision-making skills are defective.
Nevertheless, over a long period of time, individuals can effectively reboot the brain to experience normal drives that are controlled by a healthy prefrontal executive functioning.
WIKI: Hypofrontality
Executive Function and Addiction
Hypofrontality in addiction:
No comments:
Post a Comment