Transcript Tolerance
Drugs and Consciousness
• Tolerance: user needs more and more of a substance to
get “high”
– High vs. low tolerance
• Physical dependence: need drug or else experience
physical withdrawal symptoms.
• Psychological dependence: need drug or else don’t feel
like yourself.
• Withdrawal: psychological or physical reaction to absence
of drug, after dependence.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMgdlUcsko
Stimulants, Depressants, and the CNS
• Stimulants – speed up CNS activity
• Depressants – reduce CNS activity
Drugs and Addiction 3 Myths
1. Taking addictive drugs leads to immediate and
irrevocable addiction.
Even morphine taken as painkiller doesn’t usually lead
to addiction. (only about 10% of reported cases)
2. Addiction can’t be overcome alone.
Many people simply age out of addiction or quit on
there own. Programs have little or no more success
than individuals trying on their own.
Drug and addiction-Myths
3. The definition of addiction can be extended to
other repetitive, pleasure-seeking behaviors.
– “Shopoholics” are not the same as
Please… c’mon now.
alcoholics.
Drugs and Alcohol
• Experience strongly affected by
expectations/reasons for use.
Depressants: Alcohol
• depresses the sympathetic nervous system.
• Alcohol tends to magnify all our tendencies.
– Helpful people become more helpful, aggressive more
aggressive, sexual or sexual wannabes, more sexual.
• People become more self-disclosing.
Korsakoff’s Syndrome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDcyBXJAZ
NM
A case of confusion
Note – the final part of the clip is this
psychologists personal hypothesis, the
conclusion was not proved.
Alcohol addicts
• Alcohol addicted people experience
debilitating withdrawal symptoms
– diarrhea, vomiting and hallucinations.
• Children of alcoholics can hold more liquor in
their first experience than non COAs
– suggests a genetic link.
Addiction correlates
• Risk taking boys more likely than others.
• Mice have been bred to prefer alcohol to water.
• Children of alcoholics have a 4X higher rates (about 60%)
– Adopted Children of alcoholics still have 4x greater rate.
• Age of first use correlates:
– Under 15, 60% chance of alcohol problems
– Over 21, drops to 7%.
Rat Studies: Duke University
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWRMOK
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Depressants: Barbiturates or
Downers
• Quaaludes, tranquilizers, valium sleeping pills.
• All act to suppress the sympathetic nervous
system
– Taken with alcohol = coma
Depressants: Opiates
• Heroin, morphine, opium.
• Depress the entire neural system.
• Give feeling of “blissful pleasure”
– some first time users report having orgasms from use.
• Highly physically addictive.
– Tolerance builds quickly. Withdrawal creates awful
symptoms.
• Brain stops producing endorphins.
Psychoactive Drugs: Stimulants
• Nicotine, Methamphetamines, cocaine, ecstasy.
• Increase heart rate, respiration,
breathing,pupils dilate, appetite diminishes,
creates energy boost.
• Feelings of euphoria, confidence, well-being
followed by a corresponding crash.
Stimulants: Speed/Coke
• high doses can deplete natural stores of
neurotransmitters. (serotonin, dopamine).
• Acts on pleasure system by blocking the reuptake of
Serotonin and Dopamine.
• Chronic users, heavy doses creates extreme paranoia.
Stimulants: Cocaine and Speed
• The most highly psychologically
addictive.
• Rats will hit a lever 1000s of times to get
cocaine to the exclusion of food.
Ecstasy: MDMA
• Ecstasy: amphetamine with mild hallucinogenic
effects
– can cause dehydration.
– Repeated use = brain damage in serotonin system.
• Associated with extreme sociability: hugging,
touching, etc.
• Extreme Euphoria.
Hallucinogens
• LSD, ecstasy, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, Marijuana.
• Virtual high:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHwwdUOQL8Q
• Common to see visual distortion of things that are there.
• Heavily influenced by emotional state, and personality:
explaining bad trips.
Marijuana
• 2nd most used drug, about 20% of high schoolers.
• Active Ingredient is THC. Can be ingested by eating
or smoking.
• Mild hallucinogen: distorts time perception,
makes it particularly dangerous for driving.
Drugs and Consciousness Cheat Sheet
• Stimulants – speed up the activity of the CNS
– Amphetamines– they increase the release and decrease the
removal of norepinephrine and dopamine at synapses causing
increased activity at the receptors. They also reduce the activity
of GABA
– Cocaine – like amphetamines
– Caffeine
– Nicotine – enhances the action of acetylcholine, increases the
release of glutamate, the brain’s primary excitatory
neurotransmitter
– MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine) or Ecstasy – similar
to amphetamines
Drugs and Consciousness Cheat Sheet
• Depressants – reduce the activity of the CNS – they increase the
availability of GABA , which reduces the activity of many neural circuits.
– Alcohol
– Tranquilizers
– Barbiturates
• Opiates/narcotics – agonists for endorphins, HIGHLY addictive because
they stimulate glutamate receptors and physically change the neuron
structure – neuron comes to require the drug to function properly
– Morphine - (an ingredient of opium which is derived from the poppy plant)Percodan, Demoral
– Heroin – derived from morphine but 3x more powerful
– Tylenol 3, codeine, percoset, vicodan, oxycotin, Advil
Drugs and Consciousness Cheat Sheet
• Hallucinogens/psychedelics
– LSD – lysergic acid diethylamide 1938 Swiss chemist Albert
Hofmann synthesized it from a rye fungus
• Hallucinations – time is distorted, sounds cause visual sensations,
leave the body
• Stimulate serotonin and dopamine receptors in the brain
• Flashbacks, trips, not addictive
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PCP (Angel Dust)
MDMA (Ecstasy) - hallucinations
Mescaline (mushrooms)
Ketamine – “Special K” an anesthetic used by veterinarians,
produces hallucinogenic effects, dissociative experiences. Can
also cause enduring amnesia and memory loss.
– Marijuana, Mary Jane, weed, Reefer, grass, etc., etc., etc.
• Main ingredient is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)