Opioids Brain Damage?

[ikkyu]

Hearing loss is also a possibility: http://bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?p=7987853

 

[psychomimetic]

Wait.. Surely the stimulation of opiod sites , results in down regulation , which then results in other problems ... No?

Cause let's face it . When u have some sort of chemical inbalace in your brain something is going to be "wrong" with you...

Yeah, prolonged use will cause down regulation. But down regulation is not damage, and isn't permanent.

Opiates don't cause brain damage unless you take a dose that is high enough to cause oxygen deprivation.

 

[Pegasus]

Brain damage from opiate use

Thanks, I have been looking for that thread for awhile now...

 

[HeroinZombie]

All drugs have some affect on brain cells

 

[jamesmartin]

Yeah, prolonged use will cause down regulation. But down regulation is not damage, and isn't permanent.

Opiates don't cause brain damage unless you take a dose that is high enough to cause oxygen deprivation.

I'm pretty sure downregulation with addicts (most opiate users are these) is permanent or very hard to recover . The human brain can only recover to a certain extent .

The same is with amphet use. Someone who uses once evry few weeks will have downregulation but the brain is probably not damaged and can "upregulate" due to spaced out uses .
However addicts contiinue to use causing more and more downregulation to the point where it is extremely hard for the brain to recover .

Please correct me if this isn't the case with opiates and downregulation.

 

[F1n1shed]

The way it works with amphetamines is a little different though james, being that they have a potential to cause more 'damage'. With constant opiate use yes the mu opiod receptors will down regulate and with that side effects will occur; fucked mood, no motivation, depression, pain and etc. But as they were saying this isn't the same damage that occurs for instance when you use mdma ( actual lesions on axon terminals as well as down regulation and all the others. With opiate use at least that stuff reverses itself for the most part if you stop using for a long time, also depending on how heavy the user is.

 

[CaseFace]

Brain damage from opiate use

Wow! Thanks for posting this Flex.

 

[jamesmartin]

The way it works with amphetamines is a little different though james, being that they have a potential to cause more 'damage'. With constant opiate use yes the mu opiod receptors will down regulate and with that side effects will occur; fucked mood, no motivation, depression, pain and etc. But as they were saying this isn't the same damage that occurs for instance when you use mdma ( actual lesions on axon terminals as well as down regulation and all the others. With opiate use at least that stuff reverses itself for the most part if you stop using for a long time, also depending on how heavy the user is.

Ah thanks for the reply.

So opiates do cause "recoverable"- brain damage

 

[TheFDA]

It's impossible to say for sure, due to a lack of clinical studies, empirical data, & unbiased information on the subject.
That said... Although it would be reckless & premature (among other things) to say that there's absolutely no chance at all that long-term use of Oxycontin can cause permanent brain damage, it's currently believed that developing brain damage from prolonged Oxycontin use is highly, highly unlikely.
Like prolonged use of nearly any drug, changes in your brain are incredibly likely to occur (addiction in & of itself entails changes in brain chemistry). However, that's very, very different from actual brain damage, & after going for a substantial period of time without using opiates those changes in your brain will almost certainly reverse themselves.

However, as somebody else mentioned, overdosing on Oxycontin without question puts you at risk for permanent brain damage.

 

[villian]

The first thing you need to do is define brain damage.. do you mean functional damage or structural damage?

It my opinion opiates can cause functional damage (see studies previously posted) but they are very unlikely to cause structural damage or else it would of been shown by now.

Would functional change even be permanent when considering neuroplasticity? Who knows.

 

[doctorS]

Uhhhh sorry to blow your buzz ya'll, but...


"A dramatic increase in the use and dependence of prescription opioids has occurred within the last 10 years. The consequences of long-term prescription opioid use and dependence on the brain are largely unknown, and any speculation is inferred from heroin and methadone studies. Thus, no data have directly demonstrated the effects of prescription opioid use on brain structure and function in humans. To pursue this issue, we used structural magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in a highly enriched group of prescription opioid-dependent patients [(n =  10); from a larger study on prescription opioid dependent patients (n =  133)] and matched healthy individuals (n =  10) to characterize possible brain alterations that may be caused by long-term prescription opioid use. Criteria for patient selection included: (i) no dependence on alcohol or other drugs; (ii) no comorbid psychiatric or neurological disease; and (iii) no medical conditions, including pain. In comparison to control subjects, individuals with opioid dependence displayed bilateral volumetric loss in the amygdala. Prescription opioid-dependent subjects had significantly decreased anisotropy in axonal pathways specific to the amygdala (i.e. stria terminalis, ventral amygdalofugal pathway and uncinate fasciculus) as well as the internal and external capsules. In the patient group, significant decreases in functional connectivity were observed for seed regions that included the anterior insula, nucleus accumbens and amygdala subdivisions. Correlation analyses revealed that longer duration of prescription opioid exposure was associated with greater changes in functional connectivity. Finally, changes in amygdala functional connectivity were observed to have a significant dependence on amygdala volume and white matter anisotropy of efferent and afferent pathways of the amygdala. These findings suggest that prescription opioid dependence is associated with structural and functional changes in brain regions implicated in the regulation of affect and impulse control, as well as in reward and motivational functions. These results may have important clinical implications for uncovering the effects of long-term prescription opioid use on brain structure and function."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2912691/

Looks like opiates do cause brain damage with prolonged/chronic use. Haven't seen anything specifically about localized instances of use and the absence of studies leads me to believe (to hope?) that there is indeed no risk of brain damage with occasional/recreational use.

~the Doctor isin