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Sexual addiction, also known as sex addiction, is a conceptual model that describes compulsive participation or engagement in sexual activity, despite negative consequences. It is considered by its proponents to be the same thing as hypersexual disorder. In clinical diagnostics, the term ''sexual dependence'' may also refer to a conceptual model that is used to assess people who report being unable to control their sexual urges, behaviors, or thoughts. Related models of pathological sexual behavior include hypersexuality, erotomania, nymphomania, satyriasis, Don Juanism (or Don Juanitaism), and paraphilia-related disorders. Clinicians, such as psychiatrists, sociologists, sexologists, and other specialists, have differing opinions on the classification and clinical diagnosis of sexual addiction. As a result, "sexual addiction" does not exist as a clinical entity in either the DSM or ICD medical classifications of diseases and medical disorders. Neuroscientists, pharmacologists, molecular biologists, and other researchers in related fields have identified a transcriptional and epigenetic model of drug and behavioral (including sexual) addiction pathophysiology. Diagnostic models, which use the pharmacological model of addiction (this model associates addiction with drug-related concepts, particularly physical dependence, drug withdrawal, and drug tolerance〔), do not currently include diagnostic criteria to identify sexual addictions in a clinical setting. In the alternative reward-reinforcement model of addiction, which uses neuropsychological concepts to characterize addictions, sexual addictions are identifiable and well-characterized.〔〔 In this model, addictive drugs are characterized as those which are both reinforcing and rewarding (i.e., activates neural pathways associated with reward perception). Addictive behaviors (those which can induce a compulsive state) are similarly identified and characterized by their rewarding and reinforcing properties. == Mechanisms == Current research on sexual addiction within the context of the reward-reinforcement model indicates that it is well-characterized as an addiction (in this context, a compulsive behavior)〔〔 and that it develops through the same biomolecular mechanisms that induce drug addictions;〔〔 specifically, sexual activity has been shown to be highly rewarding〔〔 and naturally reinforcing.〔〔 Excessive activation of the associated reward-reinforcement mechanisms has been directly implicated in the development of compulsive (i.e., an addiction to) sexual behavior.〔〔 In humans, a dopamine dysregulation syndrome, characterized by drug-induced compulsive engagement in sexual activity or gambling, has also been observed in some individuals taking dopaminergic medications.〔 Current experimental models of addiction to natural rewards and drug reward demonstrate common alterations in gene expression in the mesocorticolimbic projection.〔〔 ΔFosB is the most significant gene transcription factor involved in addiction, since its viral or genetic overexpression in the nucleus accumbens is necessary and sufficient for most of the neural adaptations and plasticity that occur;〔 it has been implicated in addictions to alcohol, cannabinoids, cocaine, nicotine, opioids, phenylcyclidine, and substituted amphetamines.〔 ΔJunD is the transcription factor which directly opposes ΔFosB.〔 Increases in nucleus accumbens ΔJunD expression can reduce or, with a large increase, even block most of the neural alterations seen in chronic drug abuse (i.e., the alterations mediated by ΔFosB).〔 ΔFosB also plays an important role in regulating behavioral responses to natural rewards, such as palatable food, sex, and exercise.〔 Natural rewards, like drugs of abuse, induce ΔFosB in the nucleus accumbens, and chronic acquisition of these rewards can result in a similar pathological addictive state.〔(Table 1 )"〕〔 Thus, ΔFosB is also the key transcription factor involved in addictions to natural rewards as well,〔〔 and sex addictions in particular, since ΔFosB in the nucleus accumbens is critical for the reinforcing effects of sexual reward.〔 Research on the interaction between natural and drug rewards suggests that psychostimulants and sexual reward possess cross-sensitization effects and act on common biomolecular mechanisms of addiction-related neuroplasticity which are mediated through ΔFosB.〔〔〕 ΔFosB inhibitors (drugs or treatments that oppose its action) may be an effective treatment for addiction and addictive disorders. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sexual addiction」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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