
How Cocaine Changes the Brain - snake117
http://neurosciencenews.com/cocaine-dopamine-vta-3167/
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rogeryu
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...](http://www.amazon.com/Zebras-Dont-Ulcers-Third-
Edition/dp/0805073698)

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golergka
> 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.

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

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

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

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adrusi
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.

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nugga
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?

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Absentinsomniac
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.

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iandanforth
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.

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derefr
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.

