www.FrancheskaCamilo.com

Francheska Camilo González

English Version: March 20, 2014

Addictions and human brain

Addiction is a brain disease caused by the different types of change in the mood of a

person. The mood alters the emotional state and the individual's conscience. With these

exaltations, alterations and because of biological, genetic, psychological, environmental and

social factors, the individual's brain enters a state of dependence to one or more controlled

substances to achieve a state of pleasure or satisfaction in the presence of problems that have

affected their behavior emotional.

People with addictive behaviors often make excessive use of opiate drugs, alcohol,

cocaine, heroin, nicotine, food, drugs and games to produce immediate gratification or relief

some discomfort, causing the abuse these substances affect the pathway of dopamine. Dopamine

is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that obstructs shots of nerve impulses from the neurons and is

associated with reward circuits in the brain that links groups of neurons in the central nervous

system that produce intense feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. Excessive use of controlled

substances causes constant increase or decrease in dopamine, which would produce an increase

in the risk of developing mental disorders such as schizophrenia (a condition that occurs when

there is excess dopamine) and Parkinson's disease (a condition that occurs when there are low

amounts of dopamine, causing muscle weakness, involuntary tremors and muscle atrophy). The

addiction to addictive substances will affect the amount of dopamine released in a person,

causing a decrease of the dopamine source in the brain, which makes it difficult to reach a state

of stability, satisfaction and happiness. Prolonged use of these drugs will provoke alterations in

the anti-stress system and will affect to the reward circuits, causing that when is unavailable the

quantity of dopamine required to reach a level of pleasure, is needed a greater dose of the same

drugs or use of a harder drugs to satisfy the emotions.

In a study by researchers at CSIS was obtained that cocaine causes structural damage in

the brain of people who use it. The structural damage generated in the brain when an individual

uses an addictive substance will provoke changes in the way to processing information, language

and behavior. In this study, were injected doses of cocaine into a group of mice, and were

obtained that the cocaine produced a decrease in the dendrites and the spine density of pyramidal

cells of the cerebral cortex. These brain structures lost by the use of these substances are

responsible for providing to the nervous system of the brain the ability to recover the functions

lost by accidental causes, evolve and adaptation to new learning. With this study, the researchers

obtained that the use of these substances changes the structure of nerve cells, the structure of

thought, reasoning, language, and a production of changes in each neuron in the brain, which

will produce a spreading rapidly the anomalies.

Addiction to drugs, alcohol, food, and games, are mostly generated for the stress

produced by problems that a person cannot or do not want to confront and for biological, genetic,

psychological and environmental factors. These situations cause alterations in the emotions of

people, and if they cannot control such emotions will start looking for other means or addictive

substances to obtain a certain level of satisfaction or pleasure. The controlled substances require

using a larger amount of dopamine to the necessary, causing the decrease of the quantity of this

neurotransmitter, that which affect to the reward circuit in the brain and provokes that the

individual needed an extra quantity of a drug to arrive at a pleasant level. The health problems

caused for using of addictive substances is a reason to educate the public, providing to them

instructions and alternatives to evade the problems, explaining how will the addictive means can

cause health problems as loss of brain structures responsible of information processing, language

and behavior.

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