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One form of behavioral neuropharmacology focuses on the study of drug dependence and how drug addiction affects the human mind. Most research has shown that the major part of the brain that reinforces addiction through neurochemical reward is the nucleus accumbens. The image to the right shows how dopamine is projected into this area.
The effects of alcohol on the body's neurochemistry are more difficult to examine than some other drugs. This is because the chemical nature of the substance makes it easy to penetrate into the brain, and it also influences the phospholipid bilayer of neurons.
An issue with this theory is that most addictive drugs cause an individual to build up a tolerance and the effects of the drug will decrease as an individual's tolerance increases. This requires individuals to use a higher dosage of the substance which in many causes can cause adverse side effects. [34] Dopamine is correlated with increased ...
“Both types of medications improve cognitive functions like attention and working memory by optimizing neurotransmitter [chemical messenger] levels and enhancing brain network connectivity.”
Psychoactive drugs operate by temporarily affecting a person's neurochemistry, which in turn causes changes in a person's mood, cognition, perception and behavior. There are many ways in which psychoactive drugs can affect the brain. Each drug has a specific action on one or more neurotransmitter or neuroreceptor in the brain.
Neuroscientists believe that drug addicts’ behavior is a direct correlation to some physiological change in their brain, caused by using drugs. This view believes there is a bodily function in the brain causing the addiction. This is brought on by a change in the brain caused by brain damage or adaptation from chronic drug use. [1] [2]
To explain how drugs increase dopamine and cause positive emotions while at the same time lowering reproductive fitness, researchers posited that evolutionarily novel drugs hijack the brain's mesolimbic dopamine system and generate a false positive signal of a fitness benefit as well as inhibiting negative effects, to signal a lack of negative ...
Alcohol acts as a general central nervous system depressant, but it also affects some specific areas of the brain to a greater extent than others. Memory impairment caused by alcohol has been linked to the disruption of hippocampal function—particularly affecting gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) neurotransmission which negatively impacts long-term potentiation ...