Research progress on the addictive characteristics of non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents / 中国神经精神疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Non-suicidal self-injury(NSSI)is a behavior that occurs most often in adolescents.Previous studies showed that this behavior has the addictive related characteristics.Interestingly,the addictive nature of NSSI behavior can be assessed using Ottawa selfinjury inventory(OSI),the higher addiction score indicates the more serious NSSI behavior.From the psychological mechanism,different models show that the addictive feature of NSSI behavior may be related to the behavioral reinforcement mechanism and the interaction mechanism of emotion,cognition,and behavior of susceptible individuals.From the neurobiological mechanisms,opioid and dopamine may mediate the addiction characteristics of NSSI,and the brain reward circuit originated in the midbrain system may play a key role.From the perspective of treatment,current psychotherapy may have advantages in alleviating NSSI behavior,while therapeutic drugs and non-invasive neural regulation of substance use disorders may improve NSSI behavior via alleviating behavioral addiction.In conclusion,NSSI may be an addictive disorder,which needs further verification in the future studies.