1. Investigación

España se sitúa a la cabeza en consumo de drogas en Europa y, en particular en consumo, y prevalencia de cocaína y cannabis. Sin embargo, la percepción de las drogodependencias como un problema de salud no está instaurada en la sociedad. Con el fin de evaluar como tratan los medios técnico-profesionales especializados en salud la problemática de las drogodependencias en España, se analizan en este estudio la cobertura de información, las sustancias referidas y el valor de intensidad formal de un total de 147 textos, comparándolos con la cobertura hallada en agenda científica en un período de 6 meses. La metodología aplicada es el análisis de contenido de tipo categorial y evaluativo. Los resultados obtenidos indican que la cobertura en estos medios es reducida, la presencia de noticias relacionadas con la cocaína y el cannabis es baja, especialmente en comparación con la agenda científica y que la intensidad con que se tratan esta problemática es media. Todo ello, permite concluir que la problemática de las drogodependencias no es un tema prioritario en la agenda mediática de los soportes, técnico profesionales existiendo diferencias significativas en relación a la agenda científica.

Research on addiction suggests that emotional alterations play an essential role in the development, maintenance, relapse and treatment outcome of substance abuse disorders. Although many neuroimaging studies focussed on the neural response to conditioned stimuli, much less is known about the neural response to natural affective stimuli in this pathological population. Previous research has demonstrated an altered emotional experience and autonomic response to emotional stimuli using the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) in drug abusers. Here we aimed, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to study the alterations in the neural responsitivity to pleasant (erotic), unpleasant and neutral IAPS stimuli in cocaine addiction. Thirty-two cocaine-dependent subjects and 26 matched controls completed an fMRI session during the presentation of a set of IAPS pictures as background, while performing a letter discrimination task. Consistent with previous studies, emotional pictures activated an emotional network including amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and occipito-temporal areas in both groups. However, compared with controls, the cocaine group showed a significant hypoactivation of the dorsal and ventral striatum (including the nucleus accumbens), thalamus, parietal cortex and dorso-medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) when processing pleasant pictures. The analysis of pleasant versus unpleasant stimuli suggested that between-group differences in the dmPFC and striatal activation may be attributed to arousal processing rather than valence. These results could reflect the neural basis for the reduced ability of cocaine-dependent subjects to experience pleasure by daily natural reinforcers, suggesting that these alterations in the emotion processing may play an important role in drug dependence, treatment and relapse.