Originally Posted by
kanamit 
Can animals get addicted according to the structural model of addiction? I must admit I don't understand the difference between a human brain and an animal one.
Yes and no. Animals can certainly become chemically dependent, but it is unlikely that they have the capacity to summarily choose to reverse a chemical dependency unless forced to do so. In other words, you can certainly make a mouse dependent on cocaine, and while the mouse might temporarily think twice about going for the cocaine if a big bad hungry cat stood in the way, in the grand scheme of things, the mouse has no choice but to remain dependent. In classical terms, it would be said that the mouse lacks free will.
In terms of the structural model, animals are far more driven by base urges, since their Neocortex is not as developed. You can see this in the image below comparing a mouse, monkey, and human Neocortex (blue part). Note that the three are not to scale in comparison to each other, and in reality, the human brain itself is much larger, obviously. Note also that the mouse neocortical structure is smooth, whereas the human one is folded, so the surface area is far greater in comparison than a simple size difference would indicate.
