Addiction: Dopamine and Brain Essay

Submitted By hapa
Words: 859
Pages: 4
Open Document
Cocaine is a stimulant but is not normally prescribed therapeutically for its stimulant properties, although it sees clinical use as a local anesthetic, particularly in ophthalmology. On a short-term basis, stimulants exert their effects by disrupting or modifying the normal communication that occurs among brain neurons and brain circuits. Cocaine has been shown to specifically disrupt the dopamine neurotransmitter system. This disruption is accomplished by overstimulation the receptors on the postsynaptic neuron, either by increasing the amount of dopamine in the synapse through excessive presynaptic release or by inhibiting dopamine's pattern of reuptake or chemical breakdown. The use of cocaine increases the amount of available dopamine in the brain, which leads to mood elevation (e.g., feelings of elation or euphoria) and increased motor activity. With cocaine, the effects are short-lived. As the stimulant level in the brain decreases, the dopamine levels subside to normal, and the pleasurable feelings dwindle away. All drugs have a negative effect on the nervous system, but few can match the dramatic impact of cocaine. Cocaine is one of the most potent, addictive, and unpredictable recreational drugs, and thus can cause the most profound and irreversible damage to the nervous system. The high risk associated with cocaine remains the same regardless of whether the drug is snorted, smoked, or injected into the user's bloodstream. In addition to the intense damage cocaine can cause to the liver, intestines, heart, and lungs, even casual use of the drug will impair the brain and cause serious damage to the central nervous system. Although cocaine use affects many components of the body, including vision and appetite, the most significant damage cause by cocaine takes place in the brain and central nervous system.
Cocaine produces its pleasurable high by interfering with the brain's "pleasure centers" where such chemicals as dopamine are produced. The drug traps an excess amount of dopamine in the brain, causing an elevated sense of well being. Cocaine acts as a stimulant to the body. In turn, the drug cause blood vessels to restrict, increases the body's temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure, and cause the pupils to dilate (4). Cocaine also increases one's breathing rate. Cocaine causes such pleasurable effects as reduced fatigue, increased mental clarity, and a rush of energy. However, the more one takes cocaine, the less one feels its pleasurable effects, which causes the addict to take higher and higher doses of cocaine in an attempt to recapture the intensity of that initial high (1). In any case, a cocaine high does not last very long. The average high a user gets from snorting cocaine only lasts for 15-30 minutes. These highs are less intense, as it takes longer for the drug to be absorbed into the bloodstream when snorted. A smoking high, although more intense due to the rapidity in which the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream, lasts for an even shorter period of only about five to ten minutes (5). After the euphoric high comes the crashing low, in which the addict craves more of the drug and in larger doses (2).
Cocaine can cause serious long-term effects to the central nervous system, including an increased chance of heart attack, stroke, and convulsions, combined with a higher likelihood of brain seizures, respiratory failures, and, ultimately, death (2). An overdose of cocaine raises blood pressure to unsafe
Show More

Related Documents: Addiction: Dopamine and Brain Essay

The Importance of Redefining Addiction Essay

The Importance of Redefining Addiction Patrick Shea Fairleigh Dickinson University In a Biology Today: An Issues Approach, a textbook published in 2004, addiction was defined as a “compulsive physiological and psychological need for a substance”(Minkoff & Baker, 2004). Using this definition, researchers have tried to understand and prevent addiction.The American Society of Addiction Medicine has made corrections to its old definition of addiction. The new definition shifts the…

Words 2066 - Pages 9

Summary Of Mang The Pleasure Drug Addiction

something merely pleasurable or enjoyable. However, through repetition, the brain forms a tolerance to the pleasurable activity or substance. The brain’s pleasure center then needs more stimulation to achieve the same amount of effect. What was once just a pleasurable pastime has now become a necessity to the individual. In this book by David Linden, he discusses pleasure from a biological perspective. He focuses on the brain and how it is affected by pleasure, be it from substances or by behaviors…

Words 1534 - Pages 7

Teen Drug Abuse Essay

Lecture Summary Adolescents and drug abuse and addiction video The teenage years are a time for experimentation and push towards independence. It is also a time when the brain goes through an intense growth and brain cells are dying, growing, and connecting. Mix these two drives together and the effects can easily turn a young teen looking for independence and experimentation into a drug or alcohol addict. Many street drugs can quickly cause addiction such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. Although…

Words 442 - Pages 2

Drug Addiction, Disease or Choice Essay

Tia Little English 111 Graybeal November 7, 2012 Addiction: A Decision or Disease? Drug and alcohol addiction is a very serious and widespread problem in America, and across the globe. Drug addiction is a constant craving, seeking, and using of a substance, despite the negative consequences it may have on the addict or those around them. When drug use becomes more frequent, it is considered drug abuse. Once an individual’s drug abuse is can no longer be controlled, and they are using the…

Words 2096 - Pages 9

Essay Pure Opinion Addiction

Addiction is ranked “among the most inheritable of mental disease” (Wallis). According to Webster dictionary addiction is the chronic and compulsive dependence on a substance such as alcohol, drugs, or nicotine. There are also other kinds of addictions that involve behaviors such as self mutilation. According to an article titled “Addiction”; scientist have discovered that most addicts became addicts because they have moral failures, and then were blamed for their own conditions. Becoming addicted…

Words 1860 - Pages 8

drug and gambling paper

Elisa Simi Psych 201 Assign 6 February 26, 2014 A. Drug Addiction 1. Compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal. Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the addicted individual. 2. Drugs contain chemicals that tap into the brain’s communication system and disrupt the way nerve cells normally send, receive…

Words 901 - Pages 4

Rhetorical Analysis Benjamin Zander

when you associate it with memory. The brain perceives music as much more than a pleasant or inharmonic noise. Music can be used as stress and pain relievers. Sound therapy could be the key to reducing pain for patients but especially offer help to drug addicts, but in order to do that there needs to be a definitive link between music and neuroscience. Enjoyable music releases the human body's production of opioids, a sort of morphine that releases dopamine to create the happiness and sudden mood…

Words 313 - Pages 2

Meth Addiction Research Paper

Methamphetamine Addiction Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that has long lasting affecting consequences on ones body if used. In the United States more than 26 million people have been recorded using methamphetamine, and the majority of these users are teenagers. Methamphetamine, which is also known as meth is a man made substance. Meth comes in the form of a rock like crystal (not the kind you wear on your finger) that is usually a white transparent or blue in color. This substance…

Words 953 - Pages 4

Drugs: Addiction and Decision Making Essay

After doing the Mouse Party exercise I learned that almost all of the drugs and alcohol affect the Serotonin and Dopamine receptors in the brain that lead to the Synaptic Cleft. Most of these drugs are highly addictive and have been known to cause death during an overdose, but in some cases where the addict suffers a sudden withdrawal they can become extremely ill and even die because their bodies are so used to whatever drug they are abusing that their normal body functions shut down. When our body…

Words 499 - Pages 2

Comparison Of Psychodynamic And Pathological Gambling

Gambling is a complicated behaviour in how it is approached psychologically, as it has multiple types of approaches. The behavioural approach can explain gambling through conditioning and the learning theory, while the biological approach uses brain chemistry and development. Problem and pathological gambling have many explanatory reasons, however there is no singular accepted model for explaining this type of behaviour. A theoretical model that is connected to gambling is the learning theory, which…

Words 557 - Pages 3