Dr. Steve LaRoweAssistant Professor of PsychiatryCenter for Drug and Alcohol Programs

How drugs and

alcohol affect the

brain

Part I

How the brain works

They use chemicals called neurotransmitters

One cell gives its neurotransmitters to another cell to tell it what to do

This process is called neurotransmission

Brain cells (neurons) talk to each other

Basic Wiring of the Brain

Summary

1. Our brain controls how we feel, think and act

2. Brain cells are called neurons

3. Neurons communicate with each other with chemicals called neurotransmitters

4. This process is called neurotransmission

Part II

How drugs affect the brain

STOP

Feeling Pleasure and Reward: the Dopamine Way!

The Reward System

• Food, water, warmth (natural reinforcers) cause dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens

• All drugs of abuse artificially cause neurotransmission in the nucleus accumbens to an extreme degree

DRUG EFFECTS: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING!

???

STOP?

What does this mean to your brain?

It means that you try drugs you will probably like them. Because you like them, you’ll do it again. And then again. And then again…..

Then what?

Brain changes..

• Too much dopamine, and the body “turns down the volume” on its own…

Your brain changes• Over time, drugs of abuse highjack your

brain: your neurons change physically--one result is that you lose the ability to feel pleasure

• You will need more and more of the drug just to feel “normal”--like you used to be before you took drugs

• You lose the ability to “take or leave” the drug--you HAVE to have it, aka addiction

Addiction is a chronic brain disease

• Recovering addicts struggle for the rest of their lives not to use drugs or alcohol again

• Most recovering addicts relapse

• The brain of an addicted person remains changed for a long, long time--scientists don’t know if it ever returns to “normal”

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

Brain activity is changed by drugs

Cocaine Abuser (10 days later)

Normal

Cocaine Abuser (100 days later)

Part III

Drugs, Alcohol, and Middle School

Warning: Many people start in middle school!

Infant Child Adolescent Adult Older Adult

Age

of f

irst u

se, n

umbe

r of

initi

ates

Warning: Your Brain’s not done growing!

Blue represents maturing of brain areas.

TOP VIEW.

SIDE VIEW.

IMAGES OF BRAIN DEVELOPMENT INHEALTHY CHILDREN AND TEENS (AGES 5–20)

Age 5 Age 20

Not everyone’s doing it…

Warning: Drugs can ruin a person, a very short time!

The bottom line

Alcohol Facts

• Drinking impairs judgment, coordination, can increase feelings of depression

• Binge drinking: 4 drinks for women and 5 drinks for men over a four-hour period. Less time, more risk; younger people, more risk.

• Alcohol poisoning is a severe, physical reaction to an overdose of alcohol. The brain, struggling to deal with the overdose of alcohol and lack of oxygen, begins to shut down the voluntary functions that regulate breathing and heart rate.

Cigarette Facts

• 440,000 People Die from cigarette-related causes per year (more than all the soldiers in WWII)

• 3,000 die from second hand smoke

• Causes COPD, Emphysema, Lung Cancer