NESC 3237 Lecture Notes - Morphine, Neurochemistry, Psychopharmacology
17 Apr 2013
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Document Summary
The effects of a drug increase when administered repeatedly. Psychostimulants seem to be very prone to this effect. Self-administered drugs seem to often have this effect: cocaine, amphetamine, nicotine, heroin and morphine. Cross-sensitization: so if you have drugs that work on the same neural systems, for example, stress acts on the neural circuitry involved in the reinforcing properties of many drugs. Can be conditioned to environments: like when an animal is in a place where it is expecting the drug, the environment will prime that neural circuitry. The sensitization processes can be quite long lasting: also in part quite context dependent, suggesting some ltp occurring with structural changes over time. Your brain essentially learns how to respond to the drug with repeated administrations. The magnitude of this sensitization is related to the extent of the person"s novelty seeking personality traits: people that are more novelty seeking will see more sensitization in response to amphetamine.
