Learn about the symptoms and the treatment options. Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Written by Whitney Akers on November 20, The science behind dopamine fasting. Can a dopamine fast cure you of smartphone addiction? Read this next. How Does Dopamine Affect the Body?
Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, Ph. Medically reviewed by Jenneh Rishe, RN. While using drugs or alcohol, the increased dopamine can cause intense and enjoyable effects. Once dopamine decreases in the brain, the brain will go through a refractory period that can cause an individual to feel severe effects.
Some of the impacts of minimal dopamine include:. The effects of depleted dopamine levels are very uncomfortable and can lead many to develop a tolerance leading to more regular drug use. Tolerance and uncomfortable symptoms can amount to strong urges and other addictive behaviors.
When impacted by long-term drug use, how long for dopamine receptors to heal? Is it even possible? Having too much and too little dopamine reserves in the brain can cause severe and complicated mental and physical health problems.
Dopamine has substantial changes in mental health and well-being. Possible changes from elevated dopamine levels include:. Dopamine can also cause physical damage if not appropriately regulated. Possible physical injury may cause severe deterioration to neural pathways and perpetually insufficient dopamine levels and other chemicals in the brain.
This can cause severe mental illness. Common mental illness associated with dopamine include:. Dopamine does have different ways to be rebuilt in the brain. Other chemicals can regulate dopamine levels to healthy levels. These chemicals are known as dopamine antagonists. These antagonists can block dopamine receptors and can help with addiction to drugs and alcohol.
Common dopamine antagonists include many prescription drugs such as:. Other medications can increase dopamine in the brain. These chemicals are known as dopamine agonists. Many illicit drugs are considered to be dopamine agonists as they increase dopamine levels drastically. In order to maintain balance, the brain is able to change these receptor "locks" to fit other neurotransmitters when there is too much, or not enough, of a certain neurotransmitter in the system.
While there are many different kinds of neurotransmitters, each neuron is only designed to produce one or two specific types. Generally, neurons are grouped together based on the neurotransmitters they produce and receive, which is why specific areas of the brain regulate certain functions. The early draw of drug use for most people is the pleasurable feeling they get while "high," 2 a feeling that results from electric stimulation of specific areas of the brain that make up what is collectively called the brain's "reward center": the ventral tegmental area VTA , nucleus accumbens NAc , and substantia nigra SN , all of which are located near the front of the brain.
Alcohol and other mood-altering drugs, however, artificially create this effect and do so more efficiently and intensely than natural rewards. While the intense feelings of pleasure and reward derived from early drug use can play a substantial part in continued use of the drug, it is only a small part of the neurophysiological cycle of addiction. Learning has long been understood to be tied to the administration of rewards and punishments, and the intense reward sensation of drug intoxication creates a strong and rapid learning response in the brain, associating drug use with feelings of pleasure.
First, reduced dopamine receptors in the SN are associated with impulsive behavior that has been tied in lab studies to escalating and compulsive self-administration of drugs. The depressive feelings of anhedonia can drive a user to administer drugs in a reactive attempt to feel pleasure again, especially in a state of low self-control. The brain is wired with the reward system to ensure that we eat food, drink water, and have sex which then leads to reproduction and as a result, keeps the human race alive.
The problem is that the dopamine system can make you believe that certain experiences are worth remembering — and repeating — over and over again, even if the experience is harmful to the body hence the problem with alcohol or drugs. For some, the first taste of alcohol is euphoric, mind-altering. Grisel, who has overcome both alcohol and drug use disorders, now studies the way drugs and alcohol affect the brain. In fact, we still are just beginning to understand how it is that you feel drunk — what the mechanisms are for feeling drunk — because it acts kind of like a sledgehammer or just in a widespread way to disrupt all kinds of cell functioning.
Your brain needs to heal, says Kolodner. And with all wounds, it takes time. The drug Naltrexone , for instance, is an opiate antagonist that works to remove the pleasure response.
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