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Cocaine Hijacks Brain Circuit, Driving Rigid and Repetitive Behavior
Key Takeaways
- Reporting indicates cocaine hijacks a brain circuit, driving increasingly rigid and repetitive behavior.
- Cocaine's known action on dopamine signaling exaggerates reward learning and recalibrates motivation around the drug.
- Behavior shifts from flexible, goal-directed control toward automatic habit loops that are hard to interrupt.
- The finding supports viewing addiction as a circuit-level hijacking rather than a simple failure of willpower.
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DT Editorial Team··via interestingengineering.com