Effects of Cocaine on the Human Body

The human brain, weighing over three pounds, affects everything a person does. Whether you realize it, your brain is not the same brain as it was a month ago or even as it was yesterday. In fact, your brain constantly changes with new collection of the cell. If you have any new experiences, learning new mathematics topics to see a new TV show, new synapses form. Some of these synapses may be stronger, while some may disappear.

Your brain also allows you to feel joy. When you do something that you enjoy, stimulation of neurons in the mood activates the reward pathway in brain. Stimulation in the way is it that makes you feel good.

Cocaine acts on these neurons in the reward pathway. After cocaine increases the release of dopamine, since the increased level of dopamine gives substance abusers the rush or high that would make them enjoy a short time. Although the feelings of joy only lasts a short time, drug may cause changes in the brain that would last a very long time, in some cases it may be permanent.

One of the changes that occur when a person takes cocaine, the development of cravings. If a person takes cocaine, and then stop taking it, he or she will soon crave the substance. In other words, the individual will have a strong desire to take more of the substance. Cocaine carries such a strong effect that even the mention of it may stimulate cravings in Cocaine addicts. Find out why addicts are so prone to relapse is a major area of research. One culprit is the powerful craving for substances that may be hanging months or even years after an addict ends use them. Scientists have recently discovered evidence that this craving and partly a physiological phenomenon, related to the long-term changes in brain function that causes dependence. Now the target function in the presence of drug-dependent brain, in essence, has become unable to function properly in their absence.

As mentioned beforehand, Cocaine modifies the release of dopamine. But what happens when a person takes Cocaines over a long period? Does your body respond to drug in the same way it did when the person tried drugs for the first time? Oftenly, not the individual not as intense a reaction after taking it repeatedly for the first time this is known as "tolerance". The brain has adapted to have a certain amount of chemical present and do not react the same way it did in the beginning. Either body can become more efficient at metabolizing the substance. (i.e This decreases the amount of drug in the blood) or cells in the body and brain may be more resistant to the effects of the drug by causing changes in the activity of receptors. Tolerance may explain why addicts take increasingly higher doses of medication over time than before.