Brain drugs would you use?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-07-03 06:45pm

Such drugs would probably create a chemical dependency after a while, so that you can barely think or remember anything without them.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-07-03 10:17pm

I stand by the rule that if it's strong enough to help you it's also strong enough to hurt you.

There is probably a dosage for some of these pharmaceuticals that are beneficial without damaging or dangerous side effects, but we all know that there are plenty of people who will take more, hoping for more good but possibly winding up with more bad.

Society has a long history of culture and customs to modify such drugs as alcohol and caffeine (writing from when caffeine was introduced to Europe are very interesting - there were some people who got severely fucked up from overdoing it with coffee) yet many still have problems with those. Ditto for tobacco and marijuana (and not just legal issues for the latter but real side effects). "Brain drugs" will no doubt be similar, with a certain percentage of the population getting into trouble with them.

CaptainZoidberg · Post by **CaptainZoidberg** » 2008-07-03 11:01pm

Darth Wong wrote:Such drugs would probably create a chemical dependency after a while, so that you can barely think or remember anything without them.

I'm not sure why it would necessarily cause dependency. The brain might not have any reason to adapt to try to lower the drug's effects, as it does with caffeine/stimulants/etc.

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2008-07-04 02:58am

Society has a long history of culture and customs to modify such drugs as alcohol and caffeine (writing from when caffeine was introduced to Europe are very interesting - there were some people who got severely fucked up from overdoing it with coffee) yet many still have problems with those. Ditto for tobacco and marijuana (and not just legal issues for the latter but real side effects). "Brain drugs" will no doubt be similar, with a certain percentage of the population getting into trouble with them.

Humans are creatures of excess! It doesn't matter what it is, a significant percentage will abuse anything. This should always be taken into consideration and expected. There simply isn't anything 'harmless' in this world in and of itself. Even water will kill you in excess amounts and it's arguably one of the most important substances we deliberately ingest. Well I guess oxygen would be an even better example...but then it ALSO applies. Too much oxygen causes more free radicals.

Risk to benefit ratio is the applicable rule here.

FireNexus · Post by **FireNexus** » 2008-07-04 04:12am

CaptainZoidberg wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Such drugs would probably create a chemical dependency after a while, so that you can barely think or remember anything without them.
I'm not sure why it would necessarily cause dependency. The brain might not have any reason to adapt to try to lower the drug's effects, as it does with caffeine/stimulants/etc.

It doesn't adapt to lower the side effects. Chemical dependency on stimulants comes from the fact that they light up reward pathways like a Christmas tree. From your brain's perspective, they make you feel good because they are a survival tool. Obviously your brain has it all wrong, but good luck convincing it, considering that your lineage goes back a very long time based partly on the survival mechanisms it's using.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2008-07-04 07:54am

FireNexus wrote:It doesn't adapt to lower the side effects. Chemical dependency on stimulants comes from the fact that they light up reward pathways like a Christmas tree. From your brain's perspective, they make you feel good because they are a survival tool. Obviously your brain has it all wrong, but good luck convincing it, considering that your lineage goes back a very long time based partly on the survival mechanisms it's using.

What are you talking about? Caffeine addiction comes from an increase in the number of adenosine receptors in your brain, which lessens the effect of the caffeine (an adenosine antagonist) and also makes it so you need caffeine in order to feel normal, let alone stimulated. Then if a regular caffeine user doesn't get a fix for a while, the hightened sensitivity to adenosine causes withdrawal symptoms like drowsiness, irritability, and vasodilation (causing headaches and miscellaneous other symptoms). If being continually stimulated were a survival tool, you would already be stimulated all the time. It would be a trivial bit of evolution, a small matter of tweaking some genes that are already there.

A lot of drugs act this way: when you use them for a while you build up tolerance and start to need the drug regularly just to feel normal because your body is compensating for the continued presence of the drug, and it can't adapt very quickly. That's the whole point of physical addiction. Now, psychological addiction works the way you described, but try telling someone who just quit smoking that their withdrawal symptoms are all psychological and you're likely to get an earful.

CaptainZoidberg · Post by **CaptainZoidberg** » 2008-07-04 11:36pm

sketerpot wrote: What are you talking about? Caffeine addiction comes from an increase in the number of adenosine receptors in your brain, which lessens the effect of the caffeine (an adenosine antagonist) and also makes it so you need caffeine in order to feel normal, let alone stimulated. .

Meh. That's not really my experience. I've drunk 2-3 cups of coffee per day for the past year or so and I still get a small amount of focus from drinking coffee. Even though the effect goes down, for me at least it hasn't actually hit zero.

But with that said, I have to ask if drinking so much coffee is a habit that I should kick before I go to college, or if I should ramp it up to give me the extra awareness.