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China Defines Internet Addiction
narramissic writes "Three years after the first clinic dedicated to Internet addiction opened in Beijing, Chinese doctors have now officially defined it as an ailment. Those afflicted with this ailment spend six or more hours a day online and exhibit at least one of the following symptoms: difficulty sleeping or concentrating, yearning to be online, irritation, and mental or physical distress. Do you meet the criteria? You're in good company: About 10 percent of China's 253 million Internet users exhibit some form of addiction to the medium, and 70 percent of those people are young men, an official Xinhua News Agency report said."
Thiamine is B1, I fudged that one up. FYI.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The paraphrase is "I used to suck dick for bandwidth!"
Bob Saget doesn't get much love on Slashdot, so it's the least you can do to get it right.
From wikipedia:
Acute effects
Acute (or recreational) drug use causes the release and prolonged action of dopamine and serotonin within the reward circuit. Different types of drugs produce these effects by different methods. Dopamine (DA) appears to harbor the largest effect and its action is characterized. DA binds to the D1 receptor, triggering a signaling cascade within the cell. cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) phosphorylates cAMP response element binding protein (CREB), a transcription factor, which induces the synthesis of certain genes including C-Fos.[4]
Reward circuit
When examining the biological basis of drug addition, one must first understand the pathways in which drugs act and how drugs can alter those pathways. The reward circuit, also referred to as the mesolimbic system, is characterized by the interaction of several areas of the brain.
* The ventral tegmental area (VTA) consists of dopaminergic neurons which respond to glutamate. These cells respond when stimuli indicative of a reward are present. The VTA supports learning and sensitization development and releases dopamine (DA) into the forebrain.[5] These neurons also project and release DA into the nucleus accubems[6], through the mesolimbic pathway. Virtually all drugs causing drug addiction increase the dopamine release in the mesolimbic pathway,[7] in addition to their specific effects.
* The nucleus accumbens (NAcc) consists mainly of medium-spiny projection neurons (MSNs), which are GABA neurons.[8] The NAcc is associated with acquiring and eliciting conditioned behaviors and involved in the increased sensitivity to drugs as addiction progresses.[5]
* The prefrontal cortex, more specifically the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices,[4] is important for the integration of information which contributes to whether a behavior will be elicited. It appears to be the area in which motivation originates and the salience of stimuli are determined.[9] '
* The basolateral amygdala projects into the NAcc and is thought to be important for motivation as well.[9]
* More evidence is pointing towards the role of the hippocampus in drug addiction because of its importance in learning and memory. Much of this evidence stems from investigations manipulating cells in the hippocampus alters dopamine levels in NAcc and firing rates of VTA dopaminergic cells.[6]