Understanding Serotonin and Drug use

How Neurotransmitters Work

When the brain receives any information, neurotransmitters are the vehicle for the mechanism of processing that information. For example, when you read this sentence on your phone or computer, your eyes process the words you see and convert them into information.

This information is passed to the visual processing part of the brain through brain cells called neurons. Once the information is processed in the visual part of the brain, the meaning is applied to what you see via memory.

For information to pass from one neuron to the next, it must cross the gap between neurons called a synapse. When neurons cross the synapse, the information becomes a chemical signal. These chemical signals travel in synapses or neurotransmitters. The brain consists of 86 billion neurons, so it is capable of a lot of information processing.

How neurotransmitters pass between neurons is essential to the functioning of the brain. The chemicals used in neurotransmission inform how we experience and interpret our environment.

Computers make a good analogy for brain function; electrical currents travel between a network of circuits, and the direction of the current, the amount of current, and where the current ends up creates the computer’s resulting output.

Information in the brain is passed between neurons using its form of electricity and the chemicals called neurotransmitters. The amount and type of these signals and the different paths they take through the brain create what we think, feel, and react to stimuli.

Drug Use Affects Neurotransmission

During normal brain function in a sober individual, the release, breakup, and reabsorption of the chemicals that make up neurotransmission happens on a regular cycle within certain parameters.

When a user introduces a drug into their system, an abnormal process takes place. This abnormal process is why people feel high and have an altered state of consciousness while using; the brain is experiencing something it normally couldn’t experience on its own due to the checks and balances on neurotransmission that usually occur in the brain.

When you first start using drugs, the wacky effects the drugs cause on neurotransmission wear off after a certain period, and the brain’s signals return to normal. The signals normalizing are the cause of the process of sobering up or of feeling less intoxicated.

After the brain has experienced this enough or has by force worked beyond its baseline parameters, the structure and function of neurotransmission changes.  The parameters for the number of neurotransmitters permitted in synapses are affected semi-permanently.

This change in the brain’s default neurotransmitter expectation in synapses is what creates drug tolerance. A user will have to take more of the drug, flooding more chemicals into the brain, to meet the now widened parameters of good neurotransmitters.

While a hit of drugs equivalent to the first time used still creates the same number of chemicals, the brain doesn’t register them as a dramatic increase anymore, so the person doesn’t become as intoxicated.

Withdrawal occurs when the altered neurotransmission parameters do not achieve the same effect due to the cessation of substances. The brain has become acclimated to the increased levels of chemicals and needs them to feel normal. Quitting substances makes the brain feel like it doesn’t have enough of its normal chemicals because of the number of chemicals it has become used to artificial alteration.

The need for more drugs to feel high and drug cravings are the key components of addiction.

Drugs Replace Neurotransmitters

As long-term drug abuse continues after the above situations have occurred, the brain continues to alter itself in the presence of drugs. The actual structure of the cells begins to change in response to the massive levels of neurotransmitters present; the cell shuts itself off from being affected dramatically by fluctuating neurotransmitter levels by reducing the number of receptors present to accept the messages of neurotransmission.

Take a drug that causes the brain to be flooded with serotonin frequently. The brain will respond to these massive surges by reducing serotonin receptors, so the brain is less affected by the increased quantity of serotonin. While this mechanism protects the brain from drugs, it causes drug dependence and addiction.

The brain becomes acclimated to increased serotonin levels, and natural occurrences during sobriety that result in serotonin production do not feel good to the user anymore. Each type of drug affects a different cocktail of neurotransmitters, so different drugs have different highs. Drugs that affect serotonin are feel-good drugs that make you feel joyful.

Why Serotonin is Important to Mood

Serotonin is composed of amino acids and creates them in the central nervous system. It is a product of Tryptophan, an amino acid we get through food consumption. People take Tryptophan for a huge variety of physiological processes, like intestinal functioning, sex, and staving off depression.

Serotonin is most famous for its involvement with obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and anxiety due to the studies over the last few decades on these topics that became widely circulated. There is an entire class of drugs related to manipulating serotonin called “SSRIs,” or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. These drugs create more receptors on neurons for serotonin, so more of the natural serotonin produced by the body is received and processed by neurons. Famous SSRIs include Zoloft and Prozac.

When someone begins suffering from a clinical disorder related to anxiety and depression during drug and alcohol withdrawal, it’s because their body acclimates to the serotonin released during drug use.

During withdrawal, users of various serotonin-altering substances experience heightened irritability, sleep irregularities, severe anxiety, problems with concentration, and symptoms of mental health conditions like bipolar disorder.