How Meditation Helps Overcome Addictions

The allostatic theory says that when someone takes a drug he or she stresses the reward system and it loses its equilibrium state.

“We smoke one cigarette and go out, come back in again, and out with another cigarette, always trying to return to equilibrium,” Levy says.

“The reward system tries to change its structure with neural adaptations to get back to equilibrium. But if I continue to smoke, even with such adaptations, I can’t make it back. Equilibrium is broken as long as I continue to smoke.”

As the reward system is stressed, the anti-reward system steps in and says, “I’ll try to help,” and the person enters what is known as an allostatic state. Other brain structures are affected by the addictive substance, impairing the addict’s evaluation of drug use compared to other reinforcers, Levy said.

To bind the two theories and test how they could work together in silico, the authors follow three virtual case studies, each representing a different trajectory of allostatic state during escalation of cigarette smoking.

“This investigation provides formal arguments encouraging current rehabilitation therapies to include meditation-like practices along with pharmaceutical drugs and behavioural counseling,” the authors wrote.

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