Psy 203 Psychoactive Drugs

Psychoactive Drugs

Any chemical that changes how you act or feel cognitively or behaviorally

Drug Tolerance: Brain chemistry adapts to repeated use

  • needing an increased dosage to feel the same effect

Addiction: craving for a drug despite the negative consequences for you

  • Often associated with withdrawal: when you don’t have the drug, you feel bad

  • Negative is a wide range

Substance use disorder: continuing to use the drug despite negative life consequences

  • diminished control over the use of the drug

  • Don’t know how to say no to drugs. Does this drug interfere with social life

  • is use hazardous

  • more indicators of drug = worse substance use disorder

Common Psychoactive Drugs

Depresents and ANXIOLYTICS: reduces neural activity and arousal

  • Barbiturates (“Tranquilizers”) (Phenobarbital, Nembutal)

    • Acts on GABA receptors: reduces amygdala activity, leading to decreased anxiety and a sense of calm.

      • bind with GABA and receptors around GABA

    • Potentially fatal if taken with alcohol

    • incredibly prone to addiction

  • Benzodiazepines (e.g., Valium, Xanax) also make GABA receptors more receptive to GABA.

    • don’t actually bind with GABA receptors, and are also more selective to where they work in the brain,

    • less addictive

    • Reduced the severity of seizures

    • sleep medication: short-term use

  • Alcohol: crosses the blood-brain barrier very easily

    • stimulate the release of GABA and make GABA stickier

    • can feel the effects very quickly, and also on an empty stomach

    • relaxed and sleepy

    • slow neural processing and frontal lobe activity

      • slowly between the brain and the motor cortex

      • impaired perception and reaction time

    • Disrupts REM sleep

    • Memory disruptions (blackouts)

    • turns off the thinking through process, so this is why you look like a stimulant,s not a depressant (cortical disinhibition)A

      • person who is drinking is the worst person to say what drink they are in

    • Area postrema: The blood-brain barrier is weak and tells the brain if your body has toxins in it.

      • usually makes you puke

      • increased risk of alcohol poisoning if you pregame

    • Withdrawal: Anxiety and depression, insomnia, elevated blood pressure, and heart rate. Hallucinations

      • Dellrium Trenum (DT)

        • Most severe alcohol withdrawal starts multiple days after drinking. Seizures and heart attacks are possible.

Opiots/Opiods

  • Analgesic drugs: drugs that block pain

  • Derived from opium

    • Naturally (opiates)

    • synthetically (opioids)

  • Examples: heroin, oxycodone, morphine, codeine, fentanyl, and others

  • Binds with opioid receptors in our brain and blocks them

  • Effects

    • Analgesia: lack of pain

    • You feel good and sleepy

    • could make your top breathing

  • Narcan: opioid receptor antagonist

Withdrawal

  • anthedonia: everything hurts, and nothing feels good

  • feeling like they’re dying

    • will not die (unlike alcohol)

Stimulemtn

  • Anything that increases neurotransmitters in your brain

    • mainly dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine

  • Niccitine

    • Binds with nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAchRs)

      in the brain and muscles

    • Reaches the brain within 7 seconds and lasts about 10-15 minutes

    • alertness, calmness, and really good, associated with reduced appetite, increased heart rate, and blood pressure. The

    • body opens more receptors for nicotine, and this is why nicotine cravings can be extremely strong

    • Medical benefits or applications: Nicotine use may slow cognitive decline to slow down alzymers ’s disease and reduce the risk of parkensis’s disease

  • Caffeien

    • Adenosine antagonist receptor

      • Adenosine makes you sleepy

    • increase in central nervous system activity because your body thinks you have a problem, which releases adrenaline

    • Withdrawal: not great, but not too bad either. People are grumpy without caffeine and experience increased drowsiness and headaches, also

  • Cocaine

    • reuptake buffer to produce dopamine and other neurotransmitters

      • blocks dopamine to make it keep producing dopamine

    • Really intense levels of energy, euphoria, and increased alertness and focus

    • risk of heart attack or stroke

    • increased levels of tolerance and builds extremely rapidly. Receptor downregulation: closes receptors of dopamine to make it so you don’t have too much dopamine

  • Methinfetatmine Itt stimulates the release of many neurotransmitters in the frontal lobe and limbic system through mood regulation

    • increase in alertness and focus, a very strong burst of energy, and incredibly powerful

    • causes heart problems, high blood pressure, ulcer bleeding, and skin infections

      • formation: picking skin because you are really itchy

      • Also, receptor downregulation

  • Exstay (MDMA)

    • chemically related to eth and reuptake blocker for norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine

    • increases in energy, reduction in anxiety, and an increase in positive emotions

      • Really good affirmation with people and connection

    • messes with the sleep cycle and reduces the immune system's functioning

      • Hyponotremia: dangerously low sodium levels make you really thirsty

HALLUCINOGENS

  • (acid)LSD

    • discovered in 1938 by Dr. Albert Hoimen and ingested accidentally in 1943, and thought it was pretty cool

    • Serotonin agonist triggering action potential, your brain is not expecting and seeing and hearing things that are not there, with hallucinations

    • not addictive, no withdrawal effects, and the least dangerous drug

  • Psylocybrin (magic mushrooms)

    • higher dosage than LSD

  • Ketamine

    • A dissociative anesthetic and antagonist called glutamate NMDA

      • glutamate: found throughout the body, and taking ketamine blocks NMDA receptors

        • separates perception of yourself from your body

      • works as a veterinary service for animals

    • used as an emergency drug, and if the patient cannot take anesthesia, we give ketamine

    • intense feeling of relaxation, you may be aware of what your body is doing, but you feel like you are watching your body and have dreamlike associations.

    • Off-label use, where it is being used in a different way than it should be, is fine. Spravato: a legal nose spray that helps patients with depression and does not have hallucinogen effects.

HALLUCINOGENS (Cannabinoid)

  • Cannabis (weed)

    • delta 9- Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC

    • THC is an antagonist of cannabinoid receptors in the brain and the peripheral nervous system

    • altering how you think about yourself but not the actual physical environment,t which is why it may sometimes be classified as a hallucinogen

    • still a Schedule 1 drug from the DEA

    • Many potential medical uses of cannabis, such as appetite stimulants and anticonvulsants (preventing seizures), rare effective tools for chronic pain relief

  • CBD: mostly placebo products because your bodies liver breaks it down to fast

  • Delta-8 THC

    • very similar to delta-9 but a little bit weaker of an agonist

  • Legal Delta-9 THC

    • actually legal and contain same content as illegal delta-9 and gets passed a loophool which legalizes hemp products. anything under .3% delta-9 THC