Addiction can be defined as compulsive drug use despite negative consequences. During the last decade, multiple cellular and molecular studies have revealed significant convergence between the actions of drugs of abuse in the brain that drive the development of addiction and the molecular processes involved in learning and memory. Indeed, addiction is often conceptualized as a disorder of synaptic plasticity, and hence the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in learning-associated synaptic plasticity and concomitant remodeling of neuronal circuits may provide an important heuristic framework to investigate the addiction process.
