Cocaine Addiction and Dopamine

Many people do not understand why individuals become addicted to drugs or how drugs change the brain to foster compulsive drug abuse. They mistakenly view drug abuse and addiction as strictly a social problem and may characterize those who take drugs as morally weak. Drug rehab centres play an important role in reconstructing the life of an addicted person.

One of the neurotransmitters playing a major role in addiction is dopamine. As a chemical messenger, dopamine is similar to adrenaline. Dopamine affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain.

Drug and Its Effect on Dopamine

Some drugs are known as dopamine agonists. These drugs bind to dopamine receptors in place of dopamine and directly stimulate those receptors. Some dopamine agonists are currently used to treat Parkinson's disease. These drugs can stimulate dopamine receptors even in someone without dopamine neurons. In contrast to dopamine agonists, dopamine antagonists are drugs that bind but don't stimulate dopamine receptors. Antagonists can prevent or reverse the actions of dopamine by keeping dopamine from attaching to receptors.

In certain areas of the brain when dopamine is released it gives one the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction. These feelings of satisfaction become desired, and the person will grow a desire for the satisfaction. To satisfy that desire the person will repeat behaviours that cause the release of dopamine. Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine produce their effects by changing the flow of neurotransmitters. Among all the other form of drug addiction, Cocaine is by far the more severe.

Cocaine chemically inhibits the natural dopamine cycle. Normally, after dopamine is released, it is recycled back into a dopamine transmitting neuron. However, cocaine binds to the dopamine, and does not allow it to be recycled. Thus there is a build-up of dopamine, and it floods certain neural areas. The flood ends after about 30 minutes, and the person is left yearning to feel as he or she once did. That is how the addiction begins. Progressively a tolerance builds up due to the fact that the person is constantly trying to repeat the feeling that he or she had the first time. However, the person cannot, because dopamine is also released when something pleasurable yet unexpected occurs. After the first time, the person expects the effect, thus less dopamine is released, and the experience is less satisfying. This principal is the foundation of why gambling releases dopamine.