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Levamisole has become a common additive to illicit cocaine. It is thought to intensify the "high" by releasing dopamine in the brain, acts as a bulking agent, and is a difficult adulterant to recognize. Potential risks of levamisole-laced cocaine include neutropenia, agranulocytosis, arthralgias, retiform purpura, skin necrosis, and fever.
Maritime drug trafficking in Latin America is the primary mean of transportation of illegal drugs produced in this region to global consumer markets. Cocaine is the primary illegal drug smuggled through maritime routes because all of its cultivation and production is settled in the Andean region of South America. [1] [2] The smuggling of drugs ...
Cocaine stimulates the mesolimbic pathway in the brain. [15] Mental effects may include an intense feeling of happiness, sexual arousal, loss of contact with reality, or agitation. [12] Physical effects may include a fast heart rate, sweating, and dilated pupils. [12] High doses can result in high blood pressure or high body temperature. [16]
The illegal drug trade in Latin America concerns primarily the production and sale of cocaine and cannabis, including the export of these banned substances to the United States and Europe. The coca cultivation is concentrated in the Andes of South America, particularly in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia; this is the world's only source region for ...
Two studies [18] [19] have shown that an increase in dendritic spine density due to cocaine exposure facilitates behavioral sensitization, while two other studies [20] [21] produce contradicting evidence. In response to drugs of abuse, structural changes can be observed in the size of neurons [22] and the shape and number of the synapses ...
In the United States, past year cocaine users in 2019 was 5.5 million for people aged 12 or older. When broken into age groups, ages 12–17 had 97,000 users; ages 18–25 had 1.8 million users and ages 26 or older had 3.6 million users. [10] Past year cocaine users with a cocaine use disorder in 2019 was 1 million for people aged 12 or older.
Addictive behavior observed from long-term cocaine users can be due to changes in the gene expression profiles in the brain's reward circuitry. Most research has been focused on the active regions of the reward-related genes, but Maze et al. [3] focuses at what happens to the heterochromatic regions.
An implicit premise in neuropsychopharmacology with regard to the psychological aspects is that all states of mind, including both normal and drug-induced altered states, and diseases involving mental or cognitive dysfunction, have a neurochemical basis at the fundamental level, and certain circuit pathways in the central nervous system at a higher level.