It has been demonstrated that both animals and humans who experienced the stress of their mothers during pregnancy are more likely to have disturbed stress-control mechanisms long after birth, which creates a risk factor for addiction. Maternal stress during pregnancy can, for example, increase the offspring’s sensitivity to alcohol.23 As mentioned, a relative scarcity of dopamine receptors also elevates the addiction risk. “We’ve done work, and a lot of other people have done work, showing that essentially the number and density of dopamine receptors in these receptive areas is determined in
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