How Cocaine Changes the Brain | Hacker News Reader

How Cocaine Changes the Brain

neurosciencenews.com

58 pointssnake11727 comments

Good to know is that the first time you take cocaine, it works about 1000 times stronger than the natural drugs in your brain, and thus the natural highs you get. These are the normal highs you get when you score a goal in sports, when you get an A for your exam, when the girl or boy you like wants to kiss you etc.

So the first time(s) you use cocaine, you get a high that's incredible. The second time, this effect is about 100 times stronger than usual, so 10 times less strong than the first time.

Then you want to go back to that first unbelievable fantastic time, and take more. You may get at 200, but the more often you take it, the less the effect, and the stronger the craving for it. This is more or less how (this) addiction works.

The numbers I use here may be different, but it shows more or less how it works. Well as far as I understood it from the book Why Zebras don't get Ulcers which is about stress and all its side effects.

http://www.amazon.com/Zebras-Dont-Ulcers-Third-Edition/dp/08...

> So the first time(s) you use cocaine, you get a high that's incredible. The second time, this effect is about 100 times stronger than usual, so 10 times less strong than the first time.

> Then you want to go back to that first unbelievable fantastic time, and take more. You may get at 200, but the more often you take it, the less the effect, and the stronger the craving for it. This is more or less how (this) addiction works.

Isn't this a common sense regarding drugs in general? I mean, this sentiment is repeated constantly through the fictional depiction of drugs and through the media.

Not at all. Lots of prescription medications actually take a while to really have an effect., and hallucinogens & psychedelics have all kids of "echo effects" on subsequent use.

From what I've heard, weed seems to work better after the first few tries.

In my personal experience, the opposite is true: the first times are the most intensive ones.

That wasn't my experience when I used to smoke.

The first time I ever got stoned was the most effective.

Many people experience no effects at all the first or second time they consume it, but then when they finally are affected by it, that experience will be the most effective.

True for me

People who take heroin tend to desribe the vomiting of the first few tries, and of having to learn what the high is like.

But people using heroin develop a tolerance, and tolerance is part of the definition of a dependance.

It is common for opioids like cocaine, heroin, etc. It is not common for marijuana, psychedelics, etc. With these there is some tolerance that can be built, but it doesn't take very long to get back to baseline.

Cocaine is not an opioid.

>So the first time(s) you use cocaine, you get a high that's incredible. The second time, this effect is about 100 times stronger than usual, so 10 times less strong than the first time. Then you want to go back to that first unbelievable fantastic time, and take more. You may get at 200, but the more often you take it, the less the effect, and the stronger the craving for it. This is more or less how (this) addiction works.

Just like ice cream :D

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9118768...

I'm still affected by the first time I tasted B&Js, chasing the chunky monkey :(

I have a hard time believing you like anything other than vanilla.

This is, eh hem, maybe, not a story you should tell people anymore.

> These are the normal highs you get when you score a goal in sports, when you get an A for your exam, when the girl or boy you like wants to kiss you etc.

I don't do drugs but I don't have "normal highs" either, except once, 20 years ago ... Sometimes I wonder if I'm normal.

I had a similar thing. imho: More than likely you are pushing your feelings away - it's a cognitive style. Try to listen to the physical sensations of everyday life, eating, talking, etc. Possibly get some therapy...

Anhedonia is the term.

It could be symptom of a range of disorders both mild and serious.

Or possibly Alexithymia

I have derealization so I can relate. But if there is one thing that is guaranteed to invoke an emotional response from me it is music. Usually fleeting, but this probably preserves the potency. Needless to say I love music =)

I'm not sure it's quite that simple.

Diminishing returns from other drugs (MDMA for example) tend to prompt users to take a break for a while, so they can get the magic back later.

It's also a matter of discipline. I had a friend who lived in China and said every alcohol option was either a rip-off (watered down brand liquor or baijiu with food coloring sold as "wine")or literal formaldehyde, so he turned to cocaine. Thing is, he never bought more than what he would use in a night, and he and his buddies always made sure to finish it off before they went to bed.

In his words: "Cocaine is not addictive. But in the morning you feel like shit and the only thing that helps is more cocaine."

This post over-stimulation systemic thin spread is not limited to such chemicals. I think it's the reason for porn websites, and even some consumerist unbalances. The sad part is the memory of the high persists and that leads you to sick for a way to reach that state again. If the imprint was capped at 20x the last known maximum, 1000x being seen as absurd and harmful by the system, people wouldn't repeat the cycles.

From a harm reduction standpoint I wish they'd also research how long it takes until you return to baseline sensitivity or if at all. What is the approximate frequency and dose that you can take cocaine at where it's non destructive?

Exactly. Definitely not enough research taking a harm reduction approach. There's quite a bit of short term research on a lot of things that give some basic insights, but don't add additional variables that are useful even if adding them isn't particularly difficult. Long term studies are obviously harder, but for prescription amphetamines which have been around for a while, you'd think we'd have some decent research on the long term effects on cognition. But nope, there's way more research on long term cognitive effects of cocaine than amphetamines. And even that research doesn't seem to focus on harm reduction and best practices.

To understand these results you may need to know that dopamine is not the "reward" signal it was once characterised as. Instead it is closer to a "motivation" signal. Without it you do nothing, with lots of it you are highly motivated to just about anything.

I would argue that, while people can redirect the stimulation from dopaminergics to get "motivated to [do] just about anything", the usual effects when the drug-user sets no specific goals are actually rather more specific.

Almost everyone who takes weaker amphetamines like Adderall ends up developing a cleaning compulsion; almost everyone who takes meth ends up developing a compulsion to pick at their own skin. The link I've seen suggested is that these are instinctual "foraging/grooming" behaviors, all using the same neural hardware related to finding small imperfections/differences in a scene.

My favorite way of thinking about it is regulating expectation or giving an emotional reason to do something. ("I feel like I should do this")

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