ReviewFrontiers in human neuroscience2025
Addiction, attachment, and the brain: a focused review of empirical findings and future directions.
Review in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Personality functioning as a pathway from childhood trauma to substance use in clinical and community samples.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Prometheus unbound? Oceanic affectivity and the neuropsychodynamics of addiction.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Oceanic states of consciousness-an existential-neuroscience perspective.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neurofeedback in substance and non substance-related addictions: a mini review of current evidence and future directions.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This focused review integrates theoretical and empirical work from developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, and psychodynamic psychotherapy to reconceptualize addiction as a disorder rooted in disrupted attachment and altered brain function. Drawing on both clinical and research findings, it explores how early relational trauma contributes to dysregulation of stress-response systems and functional changes in brain regions involved in self-awareness, emotion regulation, and reward processing. Particular attention is given to the insular cortex and its role in interoception as it relates to addictive behavior. EEG neurofeedback is introduced as an emerging therapeutic tool, illustrated through a clinical case study that demonstrates how its combination with psychodynamic therapy can foster both neurophysiological regulation and emotional insight. This work supports a view of addiction as a disconnection from bodily and relational signals, rooted in early attachment experiences, and contributes to a more integrative, developmentally informed treatment model.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.