Methamphetamine Synthesis

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You could argue that an era of cognitive enhancers has already begun; collage students routinely borrow a few pills from a friends Ritalin prescription to pull an all-nighter and drugs such as Adderall and modafinil that are normally prescribed for conditions such as ADHD are widely used to enhance performance in the workplace. In some campuses, up to one quarter of students have reported using the drugs and a national study conducted in 2007 showed that more than 1.6 million people in the U.S. had used prescription stimulants nonmedically during the previous 12 months. Now lets talk a bit about the history of these drugs and how they work. In 1929 the chemist Gordon Alles introduced amphetamine for medical use, a synthetic drug chemically similar to the Chinese herb ephedrine. During World War II various types of the drug were used by both sides of the conflict. The Germans and Japanese ingested methamphetamine, while the British and Americans used Benzedrine pills which were sometimes called (dubbed) wakey wakeys. After the…show more content…
This is thought to enhance wakefulness and attention. When a dopamine-producing, or presyneptic neuron is active, vesicles in the neuron release dopamine. Some of the dopamine molecules cross a tiny gap, or cleft, and attach to receptors on a dopamine-receiving, or postsynaptic neuron thereby activating it. Pumps on the transmitting cell then pull dopamine from the cleft and back into the cell. Methylphenidate the active ingredient in Ritalin attaches to this pump and blocks it making more dopamine available in the cleft for the signal-receiving neuron. Adderoll and other amphetamines enter the dopamine-producing neuron through the pumping mechanism and push dopamine out of the cell and into the synaptic cleft increasing the amount of dopamine available to act on the dopamine-receiving
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