Recreational Drugs and Synaptic Transmission

Flashcards about the effect of recreational drugs on the brain.

Medicinal drug

Chemical substance that has a physiological effect on the body.

Psychoactive drugs

Change perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behaviour. They affect transmission in the CNS.

Recreational drugs

Taken without medical justification for their psychoactive effects, in the belief that occasional use is not habit-forming or addictive.

Limbic System

Complex set of structures including the hypothalamus, hippocampus and amygdala involved in regulating arousal, emotions and mood.

Dopamine Reward Pathway

The structures and neurones in the brain associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine to cause feelings of reward.

Euphoria

Intense pleasurable feeling

Dysphoria

Intense anxiety or dissatisfaction

Desensitisation

A higher concentration or dosage of a drug is required to cause the same feeling due to a loss of response at the synaptic level.

Agonists

Drugs that occupy receptors and activate them.

Antagonists

Drugs that occupy receptors but do not activate them. They block receptor activation by agonists.

Nicotine

Psychoactive component of tobacco.

Nicotine

A stimulant recreational drug; acts as an agonist of acetylcholine receptors.

Cocaine

Blocks reuptake protein pumps of monoamine neurotransmitters, causing increased dopamine and serotonin in the synapse.

Cocaine

A strong recreational stimulant drug that increases energy, alertness, euphoria, and heart rate.

Alcohol

Increases the inhibitory action of GABA, causing neurotransmission to slow down.

GABA

Inhibitory neurotransmitter reducing action potentials by causing hyperpolarisation in the post synaptic membrane with the influx of Cl- ions

THC (tetrahydrocannabinol)

Main psychoactive component of cannabis that causes euphoria, sedation and impaired cognitive function.

THC

Partial agonist of CB1 receptors in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and brainstem.

Stimulants

Increase the activity of neurotransmitter at the synapse causing more action potentials in the post synaptic neurone.

Cocaine

Blocks the reuptake of dopamine into the pre-synaptic neuron so more is left in the synapse for the message to continue.

Cannabis

Cannabinoid receptors blocks the post-synaptic receptors meaning there is a reduction of activity. There are many cannabinoid receptors in the hippocampus (memory making) which is why cannabis can affect memory.

Heroin

Reduces GABA activity which leads to over activity of dopaminergic neurotransmission in the reward pathway of the brain

Alcohol

Temporarily increases serotonin, long term is a depressant increasing GABA activity slowing down the CNS.

Stimulants effect

Increased alertness

Sedatives effect

CNS slowed

Hallucinogens

Feeling of enormous energy, hallucinations

Alcohol effect

Lowers inhibitions, slowed CNS and reaction times

Solvents effect

Distorted perception, hallucinations