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Tag: Drugs

  • Drug use norms and expectations: Obsessions and compulsions in our society.

    I used to always say, back in my using days, that speed (methamphetamine) was The American drug. Why? Meth makes its users sharper, more alert, and more focused, and it allowed me to spend entire nights up studying like I’d never been able to study before. Unfortunately, like many other aspects of The American Dream,…

  • The brain addiction connection : Crystal meth, and our friend dopamine

    We’ve talked about the general way in which neurons in the brain communicate with one another and then reviewed the ways in which cocaine messes some of the basic processes that the brain depends on. It’s time to move on to another drug, and since the brain-addiction connection is similar for meth and cocaine, it…

  • The brain-addiction connection: Cocaine, dopamine, and more

    Okay, so we’ve covered how the brain’s neurons communicate with one another normally; now let’s learn about how drugs mess things up to produce their specific effects. Since the brain-addiction relationship is different for different drugs, we’ll do this one by one, starting with cocaine: Cocaine One of the most commonly abused drugs, cocaine interrupts…

  • The brain-addiction connection : Neurons and neurotransmitters

    As I’d mentioned in an earlier post, while many people experiment with, or use, drugs at some point in their lives, only a small percentage (between 10%-15%) develop chronic drug abuse and dependenceĀ problems. While some of the specifics of what makes one person more likely to move from recreational use to addiction are still being…

  • Neuroscience updates!!!

    Hey readers! We’ve just passed the 6000 visitor mark and our readership is growing steadily. I want to thank everyone who regularly check the site and welcome those of you who are here for the first time. I’m in DC right now, attending the annual meeting of the Society For Neuroscience (sfn.org). I have been…

  • And the survey says…

    Well then, it seems that the drug-use survey I created is telling me that my blog readers’ drug use falls right in line with the use patterns common in the country. Most of the readers smoke cigarettes, with marijuana, alcohol, and cocaine close in tow. I didn’t expect the meth, ecstasy, and other drug counts…