Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center in Richland
When someone uses drugs, what changes do they experience in their brain?
The majority of drugs have an effect on the "reward circuit" in the brain, which results in pleasure and also floods the brain with the chemical messenger dopamine. A well functioning reward system stimulates a person to repeat actions needed to flourish, such as eating and spending time with loved ones. The surges of dopamine that occur in the reward circuit are what induce the reinforcement of behaviours that are enjoyable but harmful, like as drug use. This in turn causes individuals to engage in the action again.
When a person continues to take drugs, their brain will adjust by decreasing the capacity of cells in the reward circuit to respond to it. This will happen as long as the person continues to use drugs. This phenomenon, known as tolerance, has the effect of lessening the high that the individual experiences in comparison to the high that they had when they initially took the drug. They can try to attain the same high by consuming a greater quantity of the substance. Because of these brain changes, the individual frequently finds that they are unable to gain pleasure from other things that they used to love, such as eating, sexual activity, or social activities.
Long-term usage also produces alterations in other chemical systems and circuits in the brain, which can have an effect on a variety of cognitive and behavioural processes, such as learning, judgement, decision-making, stress, memory, and behaviour. Due to the nature of addiction, many people who use drugs continue to do so despite the fact that they are aware of the potentially negative consequences of their behaviour.