Most drugs of abuse use the brain's natural reward system to achieve artificial highs. The natural reward system works by sending dopamine (a neurotransmitter that has happy effects) when a behavior that is necessary for survival is performed. This encourages the brain to repeat this activity.
Drugs work in one of two ways. They either force dopamine to be released, or stop inhibitory chemicals from doing their job, and dopamine is released when it shouldn't be. Drugs skip the five senses and trigger rewards in the ways stated above. The brain tries to cope by reducing dopamine receptors, but that just leads to the addict taking more of the drug to reach the same high. Drugs are more addictive the faster they reach the brain. This is why nicotine patches work. They slow the delivery of nicotine, slowly making it less addictive.
Very good basic points, but not concise or thorough. I feel you need to cover a larger swath of information, and a bit more detailed. More scientific terminology would also be welcomed. I would also like a longer explanation of the scientific processes.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I loved what I saw, especially with your simple yet scientific explanation. However, you really need to expand on your information because it doesn't cover the true scientific processes. Length would really help elaborate on what you were trying to convey.
Your description on how drugs effect the brain was good, but didn't go well into depth. More elaborate explanations would enhance your writing more than just a basic overview. The descriptions for nicotine were very useful, but nothing really on drugs seperately instead of a whole.
ReplyDeleteI realize that it's been said, but your explanation could have been a little bit longer and more detailed. However, for a short explanation, it made a lot of sense and was easy to follow. Also, instead of being general then suddenly focusing on nicotine for a sentence or two, you could mention more individual drugs.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation was very good, and easy to understand, but you could have used a bit more information as it was kind of short. Also you were a bit general, you could have gone more into depth with how neurotransmitters are effected by the drugs and how they work normally.
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