Drug Abuse
What happens to your brain when you take drugs?
Drugs are chemicals that infiltrate the brain’s communication system by disrupting the sending, receiving, and the normal processing of information between nerve cells. There are at least two ways that drugs can do this: 1) mimicking the brain’s natural chemical messages or 2) overstimulation the “reward circuit” of the brain.
Some drugs, like marijuana and heroin, have a structure similar to that of certain chemical messengers called neurotransmitters, the brain produces naturally. Because of this similarity, these types of drugs can “trick” the brain’s receptors and activate nerve cells to send messages abnormal.
Other drugs, like cocaine or methamphetamine, can cause nerve cells to release excessive quantities of natural neurotransmitters can block the normal recycling of these brain chemicals, which is necessary to cut the signal between neurons. This results in a greatly amplified message that ultimately disrupts normal communication patterns
Almost all drugs, directly or indirectly, target the brain’s reward system by flooding it with dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter present in regions of the brain that regulate movement, emotion, motivation and pleasurable sensations. Typically, this system responds to natural behaviors related to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc..), But when overstimulated by the drug produces feelings of euphoria. This reaction started a pattern that “teaches” people to repeat the behavior of drug abuse.