Une brève histoire de l'addiction.

This article reviews and retraces the role of alcohol studies in emerging scientific and especially biological approaches to addiction. Behavioral addictions (gambling) were the first to be recognized as addictive disorders; alcohol disorders would later serve as the predominant model. At the end of the 18th century, Benjamin Rush identified drunkenness, which progressively became alcoholism (Magnus Huss), then substance abuse and finally a societal plague. Alcohol use disorder has been examined from many angles: anatomopathological, psychopathological and sociopathological. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that the modern notions of alcohol dependency and addiction were to emerge within the context of renewed pharmacological and psychological frameworks. The analysis of the various clinical symptoms would be continually refined as shown by the modifications to successive editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The history of the biological aspects of addiction began with the discovery of the reward pathway, central neurotransmitters, drug receptors and neuroplasticity. Theories of addiction, based on advances in the neurological and behavioral sciences, have attempted to provide a model and to improve our understanding of the pathological dimensions of addiction.