Hey everyone, welcome back to addiction science. While there are many traits in addiction, there are two distinct elements that are more neurologically based, and those are tolerance and withdrawal.
Tolerance is generally defined as a decreased response to a drug with repeated exposure to a constant dose of the drug.
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Tolerance may contribute to the increased drug intake seen during the development of addiction. Tolerance is mainly found in two distinct pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic categories.
Pharmacokinetic tolerance mainly occurs in the liver where certain enzymes such as alcohol dehydrogenase, or the cytochrome, p450, metabolize certain substances over a longer period of time. let's say if you drink alcohol for a certain period of time, your liver will be able to produce more enzymes which will reduce the effects of alcohol.
That's why it may take a person to drink more than half a dozen drinks, it may take two dozen to actually achieve the same effect.
Pharmacodynamic tolerance is more prevalent in the brain. Looking at the nervous system, you can see a large network of neurons that are connected throughout the body.
While our nervous system acts as a long chain that transmits electrical signals, there is actually a small space between each neuron known as a synapse within a synapse. It is here that neurotransmitters are stored via the presynaptic futon and are received by the neurotransmitter receptors. And this is where all the neurotransmitters happen.
In this paper, we talk about some neurotransmitters such as dopamine and glutamate. And that's where this happens at the synapse. You see at the end of every neuron, there are things called futon terminals, and that's where the neurotransmitters are released. And they are captured by the neurotransmitter receptors, where it starts the cycle again in the perspective neurons.
When a substance is first administered into the body, there is a large surge of dopamine that overwhelms the receptors in the neurons. But over time, the system begins to accommodate this by often reducing the sensitivity or density of nerve receptors.
So even though there's a massive flood of dopamine, not as much is transferred to the next neuron, so if you look at it as a scale of drug use, it's actually going to cause an imbalance in homeostasis or internal balance.
However, the body still tries to counteract this by reducing the density of neurons trying to bring it to a certain level of balance.
Over time, that's why it takes more of a substance either drugs or alcohol to achieve the same effect that the body uses.
Well, thanks for reading. Be sure to like and leave a comment with your thoughts below. Thank you and see you in the next post!
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