1. Explain how the use of substances alters a person’s state of consciousness, including depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. Include in this explanation what happens to the neurotransmitters and body chemicals as well as how you might recognize if a person at work or in your family is in an altered state of consciousness due to the influence of drugs. Drugs can either enhance a particular neurotransmitter’s effect (an agonist drug) or inhibit it (an antagonist drug). Depressants act on the central nervous system to suppress or slow bodily processes and to reduce overall responsiveness.
In my Psychology book in one chapter it talked about the alcohol impairment and how it can then create bad judgment. Because alcohol acts to depress the reticular activating system, several things occur. The altering mechanism is depressed such that a person does not become aware of potentially hazardous or dangerous situations that the sensory functions detect. The sensory functions themselves are deteriorated and may not be supplying complete or correct information to the brain. A person's motor of functions is impaired; yet, because of alcohol's depressant effect that person will feel less inhibited and more self confident about themselves.
Prescription Drug Abuse The purpose of this research is to persuade the population to take control with the use of the medications. The term drug abuse refers to using drugs with high frequency which can cause physical and/or mental harm to the user and/or impairs social functioning. Many people believe that drug abuse only involves illegal drugs, but in fact people often abuse prescription drugs. Marijuana and cocaine are no longer the only addictive drugs on the market. The most common drugs are pain killers, stimulants, depressants and antibiotics.
Drugs are chemicals; they work in the brain by tapping into the brain’s communication system and interfering with the way nerve cells normally send, receive, and process information. Drugs, such as amphetamine or cocaine, can cause the nerve cells to release abnormally large amounts of natural neurotransmitters or prevent the normal recycling of these brain chemicals. The disruption produces a highly amplified message disrupting communication channels. It also has a difference in effect which can be described as the difference between someone whispering into your ear and someone shouting into a microphone. Addiction is a brain disease because it has so many different type of effects that disrupt the brain
Alcohol slows reaction time, dulls alertness, and impairs body coordination. It intensifies emotions, lowers inhibitions, and increases risk-taking behaviors. Alcohol is the most abused legal drug in our society. | | | | alcoholism | is a chemical dependence on (an addiction to) alcohol that causes physical, mental, emotional, social, and economic damage to the
Also, one of the main ingredients called THC as a hallucinogen will disturb users’ sensory experience. “THC causes animals to misjudge events,” reported Ronald Siegel (Myers116), which means that THC would increase the dose of cocaine Houston takes because after taking marijuana, Houston was unable to realize that she had overdosed on cocaine and kept taking it. Therefore, taking marijuana and cocaine at the same time results in a chemical reaction to drive users take more cocaine, which strengthen depressed feelings eventually. Xanax, as an antianxiety drug, relieves users’ nervous tension by slowing down the movement of chemicals in the brain that may cause unbalance of chemicals, and it will calm central nervous system to cause sleepiness as well. So the dizziness caused by Xanax makes Whitney Houston unconscious when she was in a
Stopping is hard as the addcitive substance alters thinking patterns in the brain o drug use continues even though they know no reward is coming. They effectively have no self control. This means they have shorter periods of abtinacne. One of the strengths of the disease model addiction is that there is supporting reaearch. Volkow gave Ritalin to a group of participants he found that some of the participents enjoyed the experience while others didn’t.
LSD can cause uterine contractions potentially causing a miscarriage (Darlington 402). Though MDMA, more commonly known as the active ingredient in ecstasy, is also considered a psychedelic its effects are extremely different from LSD. MDMA primarily involves the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin in the brain. MDMA acts by blocking serotonin reuptake, causing more serotonin to be released, and additionally releasing dopamine (Holland 29). This flood of serotonin in the brain might be responsible for the extreme “high” users
If these neurotransmitters are out of balance, the chemical messages cannot get through the brain properly. This can alter the way the brain reacts in certain situations, causing anxiety. Some parts of our brain chemistry are also involved in generalized anxiety disorder. Most notably the brains of people with generalized anxiety disorder have abnormal levels of serotonin and nor-epinephrine. The most popular treatments for generalized anxiety disorder work to correct this.
The Physiological aspect is another factor of addiction a user goes through. In the textbook, Physiological addiction is “ a model of drug dependence based on the idea that the drug abuser continues the drug-taking behavior to avoid the consequences of physical withdrawal symptoms.” (F. Levinthal , 2012) It is very noticeable to see the physiological toll the body has when it is addicted to a certain type of drug. The body can experience chills and fevers, hypertension, seizures, anxiety and even more serious, chemical imbalances. Drug abuse permanently alters the chemistry of the brain causing chemical imbalances. If it is not treated, the imbalances that develop in the brain do not go back to normal cause the person to feel extreme anxiety, paranoia and