Transcript Cocaine Abuser (10 days later)

How drugs
and alcohol
affect the
brain
Dr. Steve LaRowe
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs
Part I
How the brain works
Brain cells (neurons) talk
to each other

They use chemicals called
neurotransmitters

One cell gives its neurotransmitters to
another cell to tell it what to do

This process is called
neurotransmission
Basic Wiring of the Brain
Summary
1. Our brain controls how we feel, think and
act
2. Brain cells are called neurons
3. Neurons communicate with each other
with chemicals called neurotransmitters
4. This process is called neurotransmission
Part II
How drugs
affect the brain
STOP
Feeling Pleasure and Reward:
the Dopamine Way!
The Reward System
• Food, water, warmth (natural reinforcers)
cause dopamine release in the nucleus
accumbens
• All drugs of abuse artificially cause
neurotransmission in the nucleus
accumbens to an extreme degree
DRUG EFFECTS: TOO MUCH
OF A GOOD THING!
?
?
?
STOP?
What does this mean to
your brain?
It means that you try drugs you will
probably like them. Because you like
them, you’ll do it again. And then
again. And then again…..
Then what?
Brain changes..
• Too much dopamine, and the body “turns
down the volume” on its own…
Your brain changes
• Over time, drugs of abuse highjack your
brain: your neurons change physically--one
result is that you lose the ability to feel
pleasure
• You will need more and more of the drug
just to feel “normal”--like you used to be
before you took drugs
• You lose the ability to “take or leave” the
drug--you HAVE to have it, aka addiction
Addiction is a chronic
brain disease
• Recovering addicts struggle for the rest of
their lives not to use drugs or alcohol again
• Most recovering addicts relapse
• The brain of an addicted person remains
changed for a long, long time--scientists
don’t know if it ever returns to “normal”
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Brain activity is changed by drugs
Normal
Cocaine Abuser (10 days later)
Cocaine Abuser (100 days later)
Part III
Drugs, Alcohol, and
Middle School
Age of first use, number of initiates
Warning: Many people start in middle school!
Infant
Child
Adolescent
Adult
Older Adult
Warning: Your Brain’s not done growing!
IMAGES OF BRAIN DEVELOPMENT IN
HEALTHY CHILDREN AND TEENS (AGES 5–20)
Age 5
Age 20
SIDE VIEW.
TOP VIEW.
Blue represents maturing of brain areas.
Not everyone’s doing it…
Warning: Drugs can ruin a
person, a very short time!
The bottom line
Alcohol Facts
• Drinking impairs judgment, coordination, can
increase feelings of depression
• Binge drinking: 4 drinks for women and 5
drinks for men over a four-hour period. Less
time, more risk; younger people, more risk.
• Alcohol poisoning is a severe, physical
reaction to an overdose of alcohol. The brain,
struggling to deal with the overdose of alcohol
and lack of oxygen, begins to shut down the
voluntary functions that regulate breathing
and heart rate.
Cigarette Facts
• 440,000 People Die from cigaretterelated causes per year (more than all
the soldiers in WWII)
• 3,000 die from second hand smoke
• Causes COPD, Emphysema, Lung
Cancer