Addiction is a chronically relapsing disease characterized by drug intoxication, craving, bingeing, and withdrawal with loss of control. An increasing number of studies have indicated that non-substance addiction, like internet addiction and pathological gambling, share clinical, phenomenological, and biological features with substance addiction. With the development of imaging technology in the past three decades, neuroimaging studies have provided information on the neurobiological effects, and revealed neurochemical and functional changes in the brains of both drug-addicted and non-substance addicted subjects. Imaging techniques play a more critical role in understanding the neuronal processes of addiction and will lead the direction in future research for medication development of addiction treatment, especially for non-substance addiction, which shares an increasing percentage of addiction disorder. This article will review the similarities and differences between substance and non-substance addiction based on neuroimaging studies that may provide clues for future study on these two main kinds of addiction, especially the growing non-substance addiction.
Keywords: Neuroimaging; Non-substance addiction; Substance addiction.