Addiction affects the brain on many levels. The chemicals in stimulants, nicotine, opioids, alcohol, and sedatives enter the brain and blood stream. The chemicals in stimulants, nicotine, opioids, alcohol, and sedatives enter the brain and bloodstream when used. Once a chemical enters the brain, it can cause people to lose impulse control or to crave a harmful substance.
Addiction can also cause problems with concentration, memory and learning, not to mention decision-making and judgment. The search for drugs, therefore, is driven by habit and not by conscious and rational decisions. All addictive drugs affect the brain pathways that involve reward, that is, the dopamine system in the reward pathway. What parts of the brain do drugs affect? It encourages drug addiction and keeps the individual in a cycle of ups and downs; the user may feel that they are on an emotional roller coaster ride, that they feel hopeless and depressed without the substance that abuses them.
The more a person abuses a drug, the more they can continue using it unless they get help to overcome a life-threatening addiction. Addictive drugs can provide direct access to the brain's reward system by flooding the nucleus accumbens with dopamine. Drugs of abuse affect the brain much more dramatically than natural rewards, such as food and social interactions. Dr.
Ashish Bhatt explains how addiction affects the brain and how different substances can alter brain chemistry. Once modified, the brain requires the addictive substance or activity to maintain this new homeostatic balance.
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