Tag Archives: Neurotransmitter

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Exploring drug addiction causes

January 6, 2017
Exploring drug addiction

Exploring drug addiction causes was not embraced by our great grandparents and so the effects right now are in the brain.Neurochemical reward and drug addiction effects on the brain may include certain pleasurable principle and that explains why the brain needs to be protected the most

Exploring drug addiction causes: The nutrition way

It is almost becoming common knowledge that alcohols among other substances are the commonly abused drugs not just in your state, but across the globe. Because of this, many lives are lost in the process and so we all need to pool together to educate our young ones on the dangers of substance abuse by way of exploring drug addiction causes and effective solutions. With the knowledge of this common factor, it is equally important to appreciate that what may not be common in the public knowledge is the possible roots and genesis of drug taking and drug addiction. This is what we want to address in this article as we progress into the discussion. In our last article, we introduced the causes sighting poor diet and the brains consequent magnetic and chemical imbalance as some of the primary root causes of drug taking and drug addiction. Progressively, we want to engage the expertise of professionals from AWAREmed health and wellness resource center under the leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury MD by way of exploring drug addiction causes. And in doing so, our focus is going to be on the deficiency of nutrients as we progressed into the discussion.

Exploring drug addiction causes: Serotonin

Diet is the key to the synthesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin which has been linked to drug taking. The dietary precursor for serotonin is the amino acid tryptophan which is low in the high-protein diet and high in a high-carbohydrate diet. The effects of drug taking may either increase or decrease levels of serotonin in the brain depending on the patient taking the drug. Individuals responds differently where in some people, alcohol increases their serotonin levels, possibly by decreasing levels of other competing amino acids in the blood as they reach the blood-brain barrier, causing them to relax. While other people may find alcohol and sugar decrease serotonin in the brain causing depression or aggression. And in fact, many criminals, as well as those struggling with chronic depression have been found with this condition.

Exploring drug addiction causes: Poor diet and deficiency of serotonin

Poor carbohydrates (sugar) with high protein (meat) are possible elements of abnormal low serotonin levels. The increase in meat and sugar and other refined carbohydrates consumption like junk food over the last two decades may have resulted in generally low brain serotonin levels which may explain the recent epidemic of childhood depression in our society today. Serotonin deficiency has also been linked by researchers to various state of mental illness, drug-taking, and violent crime.

Tryptophan, the precursor of serotonin (5HT), is believed to be a controlling factor in the CNS, affecting the people’s moods, aggression, pain, anxiety, sleep, memory, eating behavior, addictive behavior, temperature, endocrine and motor regulation. Abnormalities of 5HT include Parkinson’s disease, MS, sleep disorders Huntington’s, schizophrenia, mania, depression, hypersexuality, bulimia, and much more.

Deficiency of tryptophan and tyrosine, the precursors of serotonergic and catecholamine systems have been found in eight adolescents with impulsive behavior. Thirteen studies of serotonin in aggressive cases have been reported with all showing the concentration of 5-HIAA as cerebrospinal fluid are inversely related to aggression, irritability, hostility and criminal activity, further explaining why seeking for professional input from doctor Akoury from time to time is very important not just for you, but to the entire family.

Exploring drug addiction causes: The nutrition way

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dopamine-5

Neurochemical reward and drug addiction effects

December 27, 2016
Neurochemical reward

Neurochemical reward and drug addiction effects on the brain may include certain pleasurable principle and that explains why the brain needs to be protected the most

Neurochemical reward and drug addiction effects: Addiction and the brain

Using addictive drugs floods the limbic brain with dopamine taking it up to as much as five or 10 times the normal level. With these levels elevated, the user’s brain begins to associate the drug with an outside neurochemical reward. Over time, by artificially raising the amount of dopamine our brains think is normal, the drugs create a need that only they can meet. Like for instance, when a drug produce increases in dopamine in these limbic areas of the brain, then your brain is going to understand that signal as something that is very reinforcing, and will learn it very fast so that the next time you get exposed to that stimuli, your brain already has learned that reinforcing instantly. Over time, the consistently high levels of dopamine create plastic changes to the brain, desensitizing neurons so that they are less affected by it, and decreasing the number of receptors. That leads to the process of addiction, wherein a person loses control and is left with an intense drive to compulsively take the drug.

According to experts the reason why dopamine-producing drugs are so addictive is that they have the ability to constantly fill a need for more dopamine. So a person may take a hit of cocaine, snort it, it increases dopamine, takes a second, it increases dopamine, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. So there’s never that decrease that ultimately leads to the satiety. Addiction has to do with the brain’s expectations. An emerging idea is that drugs basically hijack the brain’s normal computational enjoyment and reward mechanisms.

For example, let’s say you’re happy about a great chocolate ice cream and over time you learn to expect that the chocolate ice cream is really great and you have no more dopamine released in expectation of that when you receive it. Nevertheless, if you take an addictive drug you can never learn to expect it because the drug itself will release an extra kick of dopamine. And when that happens, the value of that drug keeps increasing because now you’re learning that wow my expectations were violated, therefore this must be much more valuable than what I thought before. So what ends up happening is that dopamine system gets hijacked by these drugs.

It must be noted that there are other components to addiction like genetics and age of exposure which is why not everyone who takes drugs becomes an addict. Approximately 50% of the vulnerability of a person to become addicted is genetically determined, and research indicates that if a person is exposed to drugs in early adolescence they are much more likely to become addicted than if they were exposed to the same drugs as an adult.

Neurochemical reward and drug addiction effects: Neurotransmitter dopamine

Doctor Dalal Akoury acknowledges that one of the key functions of the neurotransmitter dopamine is to create feelings of pleasure that our brains associate with necessary physiological actions like eating and procreating. We are driven to perform these vital functions because our brains are conditioned to expect the dopamine rush that accompanies them. Addictive drugs flood the brain with dopamine and condition us to expect artificially high levels of the neurotransmitter. Over time, the user’s brain requires more dopamine than it can naturally produce, and it becomes dependent on the drug, which never actually satisfies the need it, has created.

Finally, AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of Doctor Akoury is a facility run by experts headed by doctor Akoury, for proper care and healing of whatever kind of addiction and whatever the level of addiction you need caring experts who will focus on Neuroendocrine Restoration (NER) to reinstate normality through realization of the oneness of Spirit, Mind, and Body, Unifying the threesome. This kind of treatment can only be found at AWAREmed. Reach out for help and get your life back with real professionals.

Neurochemical reward and drug addiction effects: Addiction and the brain

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gut-neurotransmitters

Stopping brain damage from addiction consequences

October 10, 2016
Stopping brain damage

Stopping brain damage from addiction consequences is very essential for good health

Stopping brain damage from addiction consequences: The pathological activity

Did you know that drugs are the major cause of the death of the brain cells? The brain is one of the most sensitive organs in any human body where everything starts and ends. Death is always registered the moment ones brain stops functioning. Therefore we all have a duty of keeping the good health of the brain primarily by stopping brain damage from the consequences of drug abuse. To do this, we are going to be consulting with doctor Dalal Akoury MD, to help us in the unlocking some of the sensitive things that we must do to keep the proper functionality of the brain. And in line with that, experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury, are registering that, drug abuse could be the worst cause of damage to the brain.

Stopping brain damage from addiction consequences: Prognosis of recovery

As we progress into the discussion, it is worth noting that the degree of the brain damage from drug abuse is always defined by the prognosis of recovery. Sometimes unfavorable changes in the brain of a drug addict are so much overwhelming that they are not even able to realize the problem let alone the need for treatment. And even if they are, the deformed psyche, expressed in loss of willpower, doesn’t allow them to complete the treatment and refrain from using the drugs. Nonetheless such situations often come to the extreme cases. Besides that under normal circumstances addiction often creates a center of addiction in the brain, or so-called a generator of pathological activity for drug craving.

To illustrate this, let us take an example of a condition we are all familiar with that of epilepsy. This disease is characterized by periodically recurrent seizure syndrome and when a small portion of the brain cells (it can be quite small in size), figuratively speaking, “going crazy”. From time to time they reach the level of excitation which covers the whole brain. As a result, a person loses consciousness, falls down, the total muscle spasms make him convulse. When he comes regains his consciousness, he doesn’t remember what happened to him. Medically these “haywire” cells are called the generator of pathological activity. Now the connection is that about the same generator is formed in case of a drug addiction. However in this case the generator is that of attraction to drugs, self-excitation of which with different periodicity may also cover the entire brain and cause an uncontrollable, overpowering desire to take drugs thereafter. The activity of the generator leads to a constant, obsessive thoughts about drugs. Without treatment, this generator can persist for years, even if the person does not use the drugs during that time. Along with the formation of the generator of attraction to drugs, there is another type of brain damage from drug abuse, to the nervous system of a drug addict.

Another reason why stopping brain damage from drug abuse is necessary is because the regular drug poisoning leads to severe changes in metabolism in the cells of the nervous system and especially in brain cells. These cells contain neurotransmitters which are the active substances whose presence in the inter-neuron synapses provides the transmission of electrical impulses to effectuate the functions of all kinds of nervous activities, including the higher nervous activity of a man’s mind, emotions, feelings, willpower, and so on. Doctor Akoury reiterates that the constant presence of the outer psycho active chemical substances badly affects the processes of neuro-transmission in the brain. .

It’s fair to say, that shortly after the “fix”, the deficit of neurotransmitters in an addict’s brain temporarily shifts back to “normal”, and the victim feels better for a while. However, with each subsequent dose of narcotic, the further infringements in neurotransmitter systems of the brain ultimately become more and more profound.

Stopping brain damage from addiction consequences: The pathological activity

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Dopamine Rush

Neurotransmitter role in drug addiction

October 10, 2016
Neurotransmitter role

Neurotransmitter role in drug addiction includes the treatment of cancer related pain

Neurotransmitter role in drug addiction: Risk and reward that trigger for the release of dopamine

Dopamine is neurotransmitter in the brain that plays vital roles in a variety of different behaviors. The major behaviors dopamine affects are movement, cognition, pleasure, and motivation. Dopamine is an essential component of the basal ganglia motor loop, as well as the neurotransmitter responsible for controlling the exchange of information from one brain area to another. However, it is the role that dopamine plays in pleasure and motivation that attracts the most neurobiologists attention. And that is why our discussion is focusing on dopamine the neurotransmitter role in drug addiction in this article. We would appreciate if you can stay with us on the link so that together we can learn and take action where necessary in order to defeat addiction. Nonetheless for a better understanding of this topic, we are going to be relying on the expert opinion of doctor Dalal Akoury (MD) who is also the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center. This is a facility that she founded primarily to make a difference in the life of people who are suffering from the various forms of drug addiction which is very rampant in the current societies we live in.

For better understanding of this point doctor Dalal Akoury says that 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 behaviors that cause the release of dopamine. For example food and sex release dopamine. That is why people want food even though their body does not need it and why people sometimes need sex. These two behaviors scientifically make sense since the body needs food to survive, and humans need to have sex to allow the race to survive. However, other, less natural behaviors have the same effect on one’s dopamine levels, and at times can even be more powerful. Often these behaviors can result in addiction due to their effect on dopamine, and that addiction can have negative effects on a person’s well-being.

Neurotransmitter role in drug addiction: Cocaine

Cocaine is by far more severe in relation to other substances in terms of addiction. 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 buildup 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 and with time adaptation builds up due to the fact that the person is consistently behaving in the same way that he or she had the first time. However, the individual cannot, because dopamine is also released when something pleasurable yet unexpected occurs. During the first time, the person expects the effect, thus less dopamine is released, and the experience is less satisfying. This cause explains why gambling releases dopamine.

Many studies have been done which targeted neural response to rewards. The findings were in agreement that when one performed an action repeatedly, and is given a reward randomly, the dopamine levels rises. If the reward is administered for example every four times the action was performed, the dopamine levels remained constant. Whereas when no reward is given dopamine levels dropped. These random rewards can be seen in gambling and since the outcome is based on chance, one may not know prior if he or she will win. Therefore, if he or she wins, dopamine levels increases. However, unlike cocaine, gambling causes addiction in relatively low levels of participants. This is because Cocaine’s chemical input is much more influential on dopamine levels than gambling’s behavioral input meaning that only people whose dopamine levels are low, become addicted to gambling. This may sound technical and complicated, but a phone call to doctor Dalal Akoury will make it much easier for you if only you can schedule for that appointment today.

Neurotransmitter role in drug addiction: Risk and reward that trigger for the release of dopamine

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stem cell therapy

Neurons communication signals and addiction

October 4, 2016
Neurons communication

Neurons communication signals and addiction when interfere with can really stress your health

Neurons communication signals and addiction:  The brain chemistry

The neuron is the primary unit of communication within the brain. A single neuron is extremely tiny. Experts are estimating that there are over 100 billion neurons in the human brain. With that you can imagine just how complex and distinct your brain is from the person next to you. And because good communication is of two ways where we both listen (receive information) and at the same time we also speak (send information). The same is applicable to the brain’s communication system with the neurons having the ability to both send and receive communication signals. The dendrite is the portion of a neuron that typically receives information (listens) while the axon is portion of the neuron that sends out information (speaks).

Neurons communication signals and addiction: Neurotransmitters

Therefore when humans communicate with each other, we typically use words and gestures. The different parts of the brain communicate with each other using electrical signals. Neurons use electrical pulses to send their communication signals. These electrical impulses are called action potentials. When a neuron fires, the action potential travels down the neuron’s axon where it ends. At the end of the axon is the axon terminal or pre-synapse. In this area, special chemical messengers called neurotransmitters and neuromodulators lay in wait. These are stored in specialized capsules called vesicles. The action potential causes the release of these chemical messengers into an open space between one neuron’s axon and the next neurons’ dendrites. This open space is the synaptic cleft. At the other side of the synaptic cleft is the post synapse that is formed by the dendrites of connecting neurons. In the post synapse, there are special receptors that receive the neurotransmitters.

Receptors and neurotransmitters function in a way that is similar to a keyhole and key. Receptors are like keyholes and neurotransmitters are like the keys. When neurotransmitters fit into the receptors it is called binding. Once a neurotransmitter is bound to a receptor, the key turns the lock. Once the lock opens, it communicates with the receiving neuron’s dendrites. In the post synapse, there may be many different receptors (many different shaped keyholes). However, a particular neurotransmitter may be able to fit into (bind to) several different receptors types. This is similar to the way a single key can open several different locks. The particular receptor type determines the type of signal that is transmitted. Thus, the receptor type is often more critical to the communication than the particular neurotransmitter.

It may be easiest to visualize this communication as a single chain of events: First, a neuron sends an electrical impulse (action potential) down the axon. Next, the electrical impulse causes chemicals (neurotransmitters and neuromodulators) to be released into the space between two neurons. Then these chemicals can signal the next neuron to send an electrical impulse and so on. This electro-chemical process forms the brain’s communication system. In conclusion, it is evident that the functions of the brain in communication are very sensitive and any alteration caused by drugs addiction can have far reaching effects. Therefore before we get there, we must do all it takes to prevent or correct as soon as it is necessary. For this reason it will be prudent for you to schedule for an appointment with doctor Dalal Akoury MD a veteran addiction expert who is also the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center for the commencement of your addiction recovery process. This is very important more so if the most sensitive organ of the body is involved. So waste no time and make that call now.

Neurons communication signals and addiction: The brain chemistry

 

 

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