Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2008 - Volume 31, Issue 04  

Open Peer Commentary

The biopsychosocial and “complex” systems approach as a unified framework for addiction

Mark D. Griffithsa1

a1 Department of Gambling Studies, and Director, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, NG1 4BU, United Kingdom. mark.griffiths@ntu.ac.uk http://www.ntu.ac.uk/research/school_research/social/staff/51652gp.html

Abstract

The “unified framework” for addiction proposed by Redish and colleagues is only unified at a reductionist level of analysis, the biological one relating to decision-making. Theories of addiction may be complementary rather than mutually exclusive, suggesting that limitations of individual theories might be unified through the combination of ideas from different biopsychosocial “complex” systems perspectives.

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    A unified framework for addiction: Vulnerabilities in the decision process A. David Redish, Steve Jensen and Adam Johnson Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 redish@umn.edu http://umn.edu/~redish/; Graduate Program in Computer Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 jens0491@umn.edu; Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 john5726@umn.edu