Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
neuropsychologist, health reporter
July 16, 2010
Have you ever seen a real brain?
I remember the first time I saw one, in a neuropsych class: the instructor put on rubber gloves to protect against the formaldehyde preservative, popped the lid off of a lab bucket, and then pulled out a brain.
It didn't look like much, a nondescript waxy yellowish-white blob rather like a sculpted head of cauliflower. But the whole class went silent. We were looking at the real deal, ground zero for consciousness, headquarters for "me." The person it came from -- or, in a remarkable sense, the person who came from it -- was of course dead. Would my brain, too, end up in a lab bucket? That thought gave me a creepy weird feeling completely unlike the feeling of having my heart or hand in a bucket some day -- which gets right at the specialness of your brain.
That blobby organ -- just three pounds of tofu-like tissue -- is considered by scientists to be the most complex object currently known in the universe. It holds 100 billion neurons (see the schematic illustration just below) amidst another trillion support cells. A typical neuron makes about 5000 connections called synapses with other neurons, producing a neural network with 500 trillion nodes in it. At any moment, each node is active or not, creating a kind of 0 or 1 bit of information. Neurons commonly fire 5 to 50 times a second, so while you've been reading this paragraph, literally quadrillions of bits of information have circulated inside your head.
Your nervous system, with its control center in the brain, moves information around like your heart moves blood around. Broadly defined, all that information is the mind, most of which is forever unconscious. Apart from the influence of hypothetical transcendental factors -- call them God, Spirit, the Ground, or by no name at all -- the mind is what the nervous system does. So if you care at all about your mind -- including your emotions, sense of self, pleasures and pains, memories, dreams, reflections (and who doesn't?) -- then it makes tons of sense to care about what's going on inside your own brain.
Elements Behavioral Health
Creating Extraordinary Lives
June 25, 2010
Like a fast-moving relay race, neurotransmitters are the vehicle by which messages travel from one nerve cell to another in the brain. They affect mood, memory and our ability to concentrate, as well as several physical processes. When these chemical messengers are disrupted, the message may go right back to the transmitter or be lost altogether. When considering mental illness, the result of interrupted neurotransmitters can be depression or even a tendency toward drug and alcohol dependency.
Though the brain has billions of nerve cells, they don’t actually touch – thus the job of neurotransmitters to bring messages back and forth. Because neurotransmitters can impact a specific area of the brain, including behavior or mood, their malfunctions can cause effects ranging from mood swings to aggression and anxiety. Many neurotransmitters exist in the brain, but those most studied in relation to mental disorders are dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA, noradrenaline (norepinephrine) and serotonin.
Understanding the way neurotransmitters function in the brain could lead to better treatments for mental disorders. Normally, nerve impulses move along the brain through axons , long cellular structures – until they land at a presynaptic membrane. These membranes house the neurotransmitters that will be sent out into free spaces, or synaptic clefts, so that they can be collected by receptors of another neuron. The neuron that collects the neurotransmitter then internalizes it and the nerve impulse can keep moving forward with the message.
If serotonin or norepinephrine movement is interrupted, depression or anxiety disorders can result, as these hormones (also called neurotransmitters) regulate things like mood, appetite and concentration. For patients with depression, the neurotransmitters may return to their original location (the presynaptic membrane) instead of sending the right message produced by the serotonin to a neuron. Medications for depression can help stop these hormones from returning to their original location, a process called reuptake. The result is that broken signals are repaired; there is more serotonin activity; and reduced symptoms for depression.
Dopamine is another neurotransmitter linked to mental illness. Low levels of dopamine may cause schizophrenia, characterized in part by emotional disturbances, but certain medications can help reduce the symptoms. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is also believed to be a result of interrupted passages of dopamine or norepinephrine. Tiredness, high levels of stress and poor motivation are also linked to low dopamine.
Additional mental illnesses, such as personality disorders and social disorders, are believed to be caused by the interrupted transfer of neurotransmitter messages. In patients with drug or alcohol addictions, the gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, receptor may be affected. This neurotransmitter slows the speed of nerve impulses and causes muscles to relax.
Amphetamines Showed Dark Side
Montreal, Canada
By JOE SCHWARCZ, Freelance May 9, 2010
They were once hailed as the answer to depression, fatigue and weight control. But by the 1970s, the widely prescribed amphetamines had revealed a dark side. Physicians began to link the drugs to seizures, insomnia, heart problems and paranoid behaviour. In most cases, these effects occurred when the drugs were taken in abusive amounts, and that was not a rarity given that amphetamines were capable of inducing a feeling of well-being. They were also capable of converting users to addicts.
Anyone who questions the addictive potential of amphetamines can take a little trip to the Lampang Elephant Hospital in Thailand.
There they will see the tethered patients screeching desperately, thrashing about, trying to break free, apparently in search of drugs.
The elephants, their log-moving careers cut short, are now addicts, experiencing the trauma of withdrawal. Because pachyderms on speed work at a frenzied pace, their unscrupulous owners had doped them up with huge amounts of amphetamines. High on the drugs, the animals lost their normal concern for safety and developed all sorts of injuries making them useless as far as work was concerned. They ended up in the elephant hospital on a cold turkey regimen.
Granted, elephants aren't people, although they may be smarter than some. But we don't have to look to elephants to see the damage that amphetamine addiction can cause. Hearing sinister voices emerge from the toilet bowl is not one of life's pleasant experiences. Neither is there pleasure to be had from malnutrition, depression, memory loss, body sores, deepening wrinkles or insomnia. All of these conditions were well enough documented to reduce amphetamine prescriptions dramatically by the 1980s, putting a significant dent into the availability of the drugs. But now they are back on the streets, and with a vengeance!
Humans have used drugs for thousands of years and, although deplored today, they may once have been essential to our survival.
COSMOS Magazine
by Meredith F. Small
September 2005
Rarely today is anyone out of reach of an addictive substance. Almost everyone likes a drink now and then. Many of us struggle to get by without a coffee first thing. Or how about the way a prescription drug can take the edge off our anxiety during a time of great stress … but some people don't merely use these substances, they can't live without them.
What makes one person an addict while another can easily put down the glass or forego the pharmacology?
Addiction is defined as continued use in the face of obvious harm. The circle of harm includes physiological damage to the addict as well as hurt and pain for the addict's family and friends. Health officials insist addiction is an illness that needs treatment and can be cured, but no one is quite sure exactly what this illness is all about.
Originally, scientists assumed addiction was a matter of psychological reinforcement. Certain substances produce a buzz, or remove physical or emotional pain, and so people often want more. Given that explanation, addicts were weak-willed hedonists who just couldn't get enough fun.
But in the 1990s, scientists began to understand that the pleasurable reinforcement wasn't simply unfettered hedonism, it was brain chemistry.
They focused on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which lifts mood and brings on euphoria. Ingesting alcohol and certain drugs takes people on a dopamine high, but when the chemicals wear off, some people's brain chemistry doesn't return to normal levels, it dips below, landing them in a 'dopamine deficit', and with increased craving for the lost 'high'.
According to Nora Volkow, Director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland, addicts are also neurochemically incapable of making good decisions. She found that low levels of dopamine receptors are associated with lower glucose metabolism in the frontal lobe of the brain, the place that regulates decision-making and inhibition.
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LA Times
Booster Shots
Oddities, musings and news from the health world
May 20, 2010
Rationalization and denial are key concepts in addiction treatment. To recover, addicts admit they have rationalized their habit ("I use so much less than my friends.") and denied they have a problem ("I can handle it. It's not affecting my job.") Here's another barrier to recovery from addiction: "I'm too smart for this to become a problem."
This week's Journal of the American Medical Assn., contains a sad essay from a medical researcher who made headlines last year when his fiancee, also a medical researcher, died after the two injected themselves with what they thought was the narcotic buprenorphine for kicks. The author of the essay, Clinton B. McCracken, a former pharmacologist at the University of Maryland, describes how he became a user of marijuana and intravenous opioids (morphine and oxycodone) over a decade while building his career as a successful neuroscientist who studied the effects of drugs on the brain.
He notes that people who work in medicine have addiction rates that are equal to, if not higher than, rates among the public. Drugs are easier to get, McCracken said. But he said an attitude of arrogance led him, as a medical professional, to believe that he could enjoy dangerous drugs and avoid serious consequences. For example, he was careful to schedule his opioid use to prove to himself that he did not need it to get through the day, made sure he was tending to his responsibilities at work and reviewed the criteria for drug dependence to assure himself that he was not an addict.
"By intellectually addressing the official criteria for abuse and dependence, I provided myself with the illusion of total control over the situation and was able to confidently tell myself that no problems existed," he wrote in the essay.
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The Huffington Post
The theme of the month for HuffPost's Living section is Unplug and Recharge. When my editor asked me to write the piece, I assumed that this topic was directed at normies (non-addicts). It may come as no surprise to you if you're an addict or have them in your life, that for addicts in and out of recovery, normal people principles get turned upside down. For the normy, unplugging can be healthy because it's a way to detach safely from the business of everyday life. For the addict this can be disastrous. Below, I'll define how to plug in, rather than unplugging, as a way to feel better and reduce stress for those of us in recovery.
For the second part, recharging, it might be useful to see as well from the addict's perspective. We spend most of our time charged up emotionally, meaning over-the-top, overreacting and under-coping. I will outline some tools for how we can "de-charge" as part of our recovery process. I'll outline some of my favorite and easiest meditations in the next article this month on the Huffington Post.
When Addicts Unplug People SufferAs an active addict (one not in recovery), my main purpose in life was to unplug completely, as in totally disconnect. "From what?" you may ask. We addicts tend to unplug from our feelings, responsibilities, goals and all the people who seem to nag us relentlessly about all of it.
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Special Research Track at the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Conference
NIH News
For Immediate Release
Monday, May 17, 2010
| What: |
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, will present a special research track at the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) 163rd annual meeting in New Orleans from May 22-26. Called the “Neurobiological Circuits of Addiction: Significance for Psychiatric Practice,” the sessions will highlight a wide range of topics from the brain mechanisms driving addictive behavior to important clinical issues such as treating smoking in patients with comorbid psychiatric disorders, as well as the unique problems facing military personnel and their families.
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| Why: |
Hear About the Latest NIDA Research in Addiction Science:
- New understanding of how disruptions in brain circuitry are linked to mental illness and addiction.
- What overeating and obesity have in common with drug addiction.
- Promising treatments for addiction to marijuana, cocaine, nicotine and methamphetamine's.
- How a web-based video doctor approach may help soldiers and their families deal with drug abuse related to combat stress.
- How can science inform the debate around medications that may boost mental performance?
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| When: |
May 22-26
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| Where: |
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana |
View the NIDA Research Track
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The Grand Views
College Media Network
Nicole Barreca
Issue date: 3/5/10
The Federal Government's Household Survey on Drug Abuse, which is conducted annually, reported about 12.7 million people have used some illegal drug in the last month and around 30 -40 million have used some illegal drug within the last year. Of the 12.7 million who used illegal drugs in the last month, about 10 million are presumed to be casual drug users, and about 2.7 million are addicts, according to drug library.org.
"I think people who steal drugs and other medications are kind of pathetic. They don't realize all the people they hurt, much less themselves," Gabby Detrick, English sophomore, said. "People know when they have a problem; they are just so dependent on it that they don't want to admit it."
The quickest way for a drug to affect a person's brain is by putting it in their bloodstream. Drugs that are inserted directly into the bloodstream have a faster effect than those that are swallowed.
IV injection will have a greater and faster affect because the drug is immediately available to the brain. What the drug is also plays a great factor.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "Individuals who suffer from addiction often have one or more accompanying medical issues, including lung and cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, and mental disorders. Imaging scans, chest x-rays, and blood tests show the damaging effects of drug abuse throughout the body."
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Tulsa World
By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
Published: 4/5/2010 2:20 AM
Nobody starts out to get addicted to prescription drugs, but some people are just more susceptible than others, said Dr. William Yarborough, addiction specialist at the University of Oklahoma's School of Community Medicine.
"Addiction is an illness that has psychiatric and moral symptoms. At the end of the day, addiction is a brain chemistry disease," he said.
Public misconceptions about addiction — including demonizing both the addict and the drugs — are only exacerbating the problem.
"We also have to kind of get away from the idea that the drugs themselves are evil," Yarborough said.
The diversion and abuse of prescription drugs is a "serious and increasing problem" in the U.S., according to the 2010 National Drug Threat Assessment.
U.S. deaths from prescription opiate painkillers such as Lortab and OxyContin skyrocketed 98 percent between 2002 and 2006, it said. In Oklahoma, 14 percent of 2007 drug deaths were from hydrocodone or oxycodone, according to state medical examiners data.
Since 2001, Oklahoma has seen a 76 percent increase in drug overdose deaths, said Darrell Weaver, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. Eighty-six percent
of drug overdose deaths in 2008 were from prescription drugs.
Most agree addicts need treatment rather than jail.
"If you put them in prison, it costs five times as much as a treatment center," said Yarborough, who also is medical director for 12 & 12, one of the largest addiction treatment facilities in northeast Oklahoma.
But few treatment centers are available, and all have long waiting lists. State cutbacks mean fewer places for low-income people to get treatment. People whose insurance covers drug treatment can't get treatment of adequate length — if they can get into a facility at all.
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