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addiction
What is the difference between the way addiction affects the new brain and the old brain? i understand the old brain is our primitive brain, and the new brain is our logical brain.. but how does addiction play a part in each one??
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The Two (Or Three) Brain concept was made popular as Triune Brain Theory in the 1960s, but it's also pretty much been rejected by every physiologists and neurologist alive today, even though it's still used as a concept by self-help books and motivational speakers.
People who study the human brain understand that it's not a factually accurate explanation of how the brain works, so take it with a grain of salt - it's an outdated theory.
Also, how the brain will be effected will depend a great deal on whether you are talking about a chemical addiction (like alcohol or cocaine) or a behavioral addiction (more accurately called a compulsion). Obviously, chemical addictions introduce specific chemicals into the brain, which changes its behavior, whereas a behavior relies on the brains own mechanisms to be reinforced.
However, in both cases most current research says the the dopamine reward system is the main culprit and can lead to people feel good even when doing things that hurt themselves. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter actually does a few different things, but it's also the brain's own little 'reward system'. It makes us feel good when pet a cute puppy, or when we do drugs.
Cocaine, as an example, actually chemically inhibits the natural dopamine cycle, so dopamine builds up for a while and then gets released all at once - a person feels really good when that happens.
Winning at gambling also releases dopamine - and to put it really simply, gambling addicts become addicted to that 'natural high'.
These activities raise the amount of dopamine in our brains and our brains think the new high level is normal, and we start to crave the dopamine high that only the drug or behavior can give us (and often, it'll take more of the drug, or the behavior, to get the same dopamine levels as high as they first got...)
Dopamine is primarily acting on the limbic system (or the 'Old Brain' if you rather call it that).
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