Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:35:05.928Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Drug instrumentalization and evolution: Going even further

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2011

Daniel H. Lende
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620. [email protected]://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/

Abstract

Müller & Schumann (M&S) deserve applause for their interdisciplinary examination of drug use, evolution, and learning. Further steps can deepen their evolutionary analysis: a focus on adaptive benefits, a distinction between approach and consummatory behaviors, an examination of how drugs can create adaptive lag through changing human niche construction, the importance of other neurobehavioral mechanisms in drug use besides instrumentalization, and the importance of sociocultural dynamics and neural plasticity in both human evolution and drug use.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Laland, K. N. & Brown, G. R. (2006) Niche construction, human behavior, and the adaptive-lag hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology 15:95104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lende, D. H. (2005) Wanting and drug use: A biocultural approach to the analysis of addiction. ETHOS 33(1):100–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lende, D. H. (2007) Evolution and modern behavioral problems. In: Evolutionary medicine and health: New perspectives, ed. Trevathan, E. O. Wenda, Smith, E. O. & McKenna, J. J., pp. 277–90, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lende, D. H., Leonard, T., Sterk, C. E. & Elifson, K. (2007) Functional methamphetamine use: The insider's perspective. Addiction Research and Therapy 15(5):465–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lende, D. H. & Smith, E. O. (2002) Evolution meets biopsychosociality: An analysis of addictive behavior. Addiction 97(4):447–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed