• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

How Does Methamphetamine effect your Neurological receptors?

rbbhf111

Greenlighter
Joined
Jun 26, 2011
Messages
22
One of the effects that a person who enjoys an methamphetamine type of drug/medication in general would "Probably" be the rise in the dopamine receptor.

I was wondering to what extent do your receptors get risen? For example what receptors get effected besides dopamine. Anyone more experienced in the more complex psychology of this potent drug?
 
One of the effects that a person who enjoys an methamphetamine type of drug/medication in general would "Probably" be the rise in the dopamine receptor.

No.

Overstimulation of a brain cell (e.g. by too much serotonin) will cause the receptor to move some serotonin receptors inside of it so they are not exposed. This is a process called internalization or downregulation and is the reason for most tolerance.

Methamphetamine is a triple releasing agent (serotonin/norepinephrine/dopamine) with activity at SERT, DAT, NET, and VMAT too I think. Because it releases monoamines so broadly it is considered neurotoxic. In additiion it hits the trace amine associated receptors, sigma receptors and interacts with the glutamate pathways too.

Other actions include interaction at calcium channels, and adrenergic effects.

I don't believe methamp has direct dopaminergic action.
 
Methamphetamine does not activate receptors (as would a direct agonist)... so it doesn't have any effect on receptors itself (as much as it is shaped like dopamine)

However that Methamphetamine is shaped enough like dopamine does allow it to enter the dopamine transporter. Unlike dopamine, methamphetamine phosphorates your dopamine transporters from within, meaning it alters, opens and effectively kills off your transporter

While the transporter hangs eviscerated at the synaptic cleft, it still transports dopamine (before your brain 'buries' it, as it were, by "internalization", which is a normal process, however methamphetamine hurries up the process by compromising the transporter by damaging it)

The transporter just can't hold on to any dopamine, they even leak out the reuptake pump (which before only let in dopamine) however the normal places which only released dopamine now also let dopamine back in.... (unlike reuptake inhibitors like cocaine, which close off completely the return of dopamine to the transporters allowing them to be emptied more thoroughly, that is, over time if persistently attached as a ligand to the reuptake pump, into the synaptic cleft, because they do not allow a return through the out gate, as dopamine releasing agents such a amphetamine do)

This is why cocaine is neuroprotective but amphetamine is neurotoxic even though they have very similar subjective effects. Some studies have shown amphetamine to increase instances of alzheimers whereas cocaine users have lessened instances of alzheimers in old age.

Think of the dopamine transporters effected by meth, in the vein of "phosphate" (hehe), as a shaken soda can that bulges until it bursts; it has widened along the sides and now dopamine seeps through and floods the walls of receptors on the other side of the synaptic cleft, the dopamine floats around between the transporter's ripped out gates back into the transporters but freely back out again. Whereas cocaine and ritalin close fast the gates of the transporters from the dopamine that has been released, and keeps it compressed in the synaptic cleft closer to the receptors, but it still must be released by natural reinforcement (which persistent agonism/activation of the dopamine transporter is, causing a feedback loop; thus the similarity of cocaine and (even racemic) meth, but also the definite subjective difference when say, IV'd, between the two (which hasn't do to with the increased heart rate of cocaine as versus dextro-/crystal meth, because racemic meth activates the peripheral receptors and has the same subjective physical effect of cocaine in that capacity, which hasn't the cardiotoxicity of cocaine which is unrelated to the increased heart rate but do to the sodium channel blocking effects of coke, interfering with the electric firing of action potentials which keep the heart beating and also cause the seizure effect in the brain from coke.)

Also, the transporters are downregulated, but receptors can be upregulated; this however does not lead to "more euphoria", because euphoria has rather been tied to the percentage of receptors as a whole being occupied, and the more there are, the more it takes to occupy, say, the 95% which causes the ecstatic euphoria of that addictive event horizon of true habituation.

However if I'm not mistaken, both upregulation and downregulation of many parts have been observed upon administration of dopaminergics, and it depends on the individual at the time of use and other reinforcing factors of the brain in relation to the use, duration of use, overuse. etc

However, the genital regions have transporters and receptors for dopamine as well, this is why methamphetamine, even if less intense than cocaine when IV'd, can cause men to ejaculate without arousal, etc. Because it is indiscriminate at the sites it affects and not a amplified retention of dopamine where ones normal neurological function reinforce pleasure centers.
 
Last edited:
Damn, Nagelfar... that was a fierce buzz kill. I snort meth and I really like the way it makes me feel. I have it in my system and in my bottom drawer right now. Meth is my favorite drug. I stopped heroin and coke and oxycontin because eventually I basically got bored of the high. The high from meth makes me feel better than any other drugs alone or combined. I like it much better than E even.

Your post was killer, dude. I think I'll save the rest for later. I don't want to stop but I don't want any of the above stated effects. It might be too late but I'm gonna slow my roll for a minute.

Where did you get YOUR degree, by the way? Much respect.
 
You missed it, first mention of that was a couple posts up.
 
Where did you get YOUR degree, by the way? Much respect.

Underneath a bridge shooting meth with a hobo named Larry who prep'd the shot with cracked and dirty fingers.... Well, not there, but I've been there... Mostly here at bluelight and online doing self-study, I like to update Wikipedia with information from online journals, etc. I have no degree, I'm a GED graduate and high-school drop out. Everyone tells me to go back to school...

Trust me I know where you are coming from, I spent all of last year (2010) shooting a lot of meth; mostly because I couldn't afford cocaine (...to shoot, which I like to better) with my heroin / dilaudid habit. I'm clean off of everything after my last month in county jail. Which wasn't on drug charges, but was because of drugs: I robbed a 7-11 living on the street so I wouldn't have to be dope-sick that day. Made it three days before they caught me pan-handling; the police knew me from the surveillance footage; and I did less time for that than breaking into my ex-girlfriend's house at three in the morning the previous year when I began my long meth binge (I walked 20 miles to her place, I still thought it was around midnight) and attacked the guy she was in bed with; who promptly put me in my place (thankfully he was bigger than me)... I hadn't seen her but once in person the past 7 months before that incident; but I had been up for a week shooting like $60 worth of crystal every two hours and was full on psychotic...... Got charged with a residential burglary and assault, the first trouble of my ever getting into at 28 years old, but only because I went back to apologize and they, understandably, called the police on me... It wasn't me at all, I'm still mentally fucked up over what I did. (I was stone cold rational sober when I robbed the 7-11, I just hated myself and knew getting put away would be the only way to get me clean)

So keep some kind of moderation at least, if I'm any kind of example. But of course, any kind of excessive use is moderation compared to my recent history with stories I could tell; with heroin for instance; I found a china white connection here on the west coast, my dealer told me to be careful that someone OD'd on $2 worth, well I was doing a bag or two a day of tar and just did the whole bag of china after taking an Atavan for dopesickness (because I didn't think I'd be getting well that day)... I have a vague memory after that of leaving the place I was staying at, with my friends trying to stop me and me having this imperative feeling that I can't explain to leave and make up any slurred nonsensical excuse to leave, then them giving up (I was mumbling, they say, something about "the first letter of your last name" and other straight out gibberish), then a vague memory of climbing a fence, and then waking up (luckily!) face down (literally) in a ditch behind a historic elementary school downtown. Face straight down, not turned to the side or anything, like a rigid Ken doll, in a full on ditch. I know no one dumped me there because I remember climbing the school-yard black iron-wrought fence to get there. I think my brain went on autopilot like an elk or deer that is going to the woods to lay down curl up and die.

Maybe this should go in 'the dark side' but I don't really feel like parading it, you just inspired me to give a response on why (in my opinion) meth isn't so wholesome. It's honestly not that dangerous in a life threatening sense (like cocaine) but it does render your mental faculties dull. It's the only drug I wouldn't seek out (though which I would do if someone offered it to me)... I still haven't gotten completely over my opiate or cocaine "seeking" fantasies (maybe I'd just rather die than end up without as sharp of senses), luckily I'm somewhere in the middle of nowhere without a vehicle, a suspended license, without money and I have made a resolution with myself not to pan handle anymore. (don't know how successful I'd be in a backwater town anyway.)

I used to work two full time jobs in healthcare as an RNA and even briefly at a hospital. (I did get several certifications for such work after my GED, but now I'm a felon for the robbery and can't do that line of work anymore)

My lawyer, the one my first time through jail, had a husband (also a lawyer) who secretly did so much meth daily to himself over a years time that he could no longer achieve an erection; and had to get a penis pump installed for impotence. He could afford that. Most of us can't. My lawyer said she studied it, and that it takes four years to get all your transporters back near the level to before when you've heavily used meth. 4 years of complete abstinence from dopamine releasing agents (which is hard to do, when you aren't, and it's the only thing that makes you so anymore). And they don't know about permanent damage.

I'm not opposed to meth, but I like to honestly weigh what risks are right for who uses it. I like thinking clearly, I know people have gone psycho on coke, but I just haven't, even doing two ounces to myself shooting it and not sleeping, whereas one shot of meth, and I even anticipate going so insane now (which didn't happen at first) that I get all the newspapers and magazines around the house spread out before me beforehand because I know I'll be so interested in reading all of 'the secret messages from God / the CIA / the aliens' seconds after doing the shot. (Have you ever seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind" with Russel Crowe? It's almost exactly like that, my experiences were nearly identical to that; amphetamine psychosis is very approximate to schizophrenia) I've talked to a lot of old time tweakers who "like to sketch out" & actually "like" "the sketch" of thinking people are talking about them and getting in fights with them etc. I sadly know what they mean, its "interesting" feeling like you are having a religious experiences with hyper-religious thinking (even as an atheist - before meth) or are controlling the elements of nature with your mind; but when the ideas don't go completely away after use (which they seem to with coke), and its hard (even after understanding the psychological rules of "confirmation bias"; that your brain retroactively archives events backwards so you remember something happening supernaturally or "pre-cognitively" by the glutamate and dopamine systems being so over blown) to talk yourself out of the supernaturally strange events that happen to you after doing it, even months later... well... I just want to say I was about as close as you can get to becoming one of those street lunatics while still being able to take a step back and not (at that point) actually become one.... thankfully. Doesn't mean I don't have shameful emotional and self-image scars of all kinds because of it. And this was only in the last year or two.

Of course, shooting meth and snorting meth are two very different things. Sticking with snorting it should remain a relatively sane experience.
 
Last edited:
Sticking with snorting it should remain a relatively sane experience.
I lol'd =D there's nothing sane about meth. I've met very few "functional" meth addicts that had jobs or dealing & what not... Shit hypes you up & when you come down, you feel pure anhedonia. You start lying to yourself, making up excuses to use more & more.
After a long Sunday night out partying you can't fall asleep & by morning you have work & responsibillities & you spiral out of control trying to manage a your habit (denial is a bitch, too) & your job, family, social life, etc..
As a kid in high school, I just stopped giving a fuck about everyone & everything, which is one side effect that can be nice sometimes...

Question:
I read "There is a 95% chance you will become addicted to speed after your 2nd use." Is this a valid statement? Someone else on Bluelight posted this number, but never cited anything.
I don't really believe this statement, but I'd just like an explanation for that number.
 
I lol'd =D there's nothing sane about meth.

Yes but you have to remember, it's still considered academically & medically viable for use by the modern establishment as a nootropic (though I'd consider amphetamines more neurotropic ;-p) by the name desoxyn. Adderall & Dexedrine are basically the same, just simply more metabolically liable and less specific for certain transporter types (SERT, etc), being not methylated at a certain position, but they still phosphorate DAT and are neurotoxic to the degree that they show efficacy. Saying that short-term learning benefits from drugs can be considered 'learning drugs' when long term effects present infact learning damage, is a dangerous positon to take.

And our medical-academic establishment continues to put heroin out as being as destructive; while even in socially colloquial drug circles, such as the rave scene, MDMA is widely considered a non-damaging drug; when its a more damaging (if less metabolically stable and so more quickly cleaned from the body) form of meth (by very virtue of the fact that it targets SERT in preference to DAT; the body can readily produce its own dopamine but not serotonin; and what transporters there are of those are compromised in droves by MDMA). Just the discrepancy there, or lack of one, between the view of opioids and amphetamines, makes me aghast at what little understanding there is promulgated from 'official' understanding of the subject (out of the mouths of nondrug users and infact uninterested parties).
 
How much stronger is Methamphetamine in comparison to Amphetamine (or Dextro-amphetamine, I don't know if there's a difference between Dex-amp & amp... is there?).
I know personally I'd take Dexedrine pills over medium quallity meth. Methamphetamine is basically the same as Dex-amphetamine, but effects serotonin more heavily, no?

Yes but you have to remember, it's still considered academically & medically viable for use by the modern establishment as a nootropic (though I'd consider amphetamines more neurotropic ;-p) by the name desoxyn. Adderall & Dexedrine are basically the same, just simply more metabolically liable and less specific for certain transporter types (SERT, etc), being not methylated at a certain position, but they still phosphorate DAT and are neurotoxic to the degree that they show efficacy. Saying that short-term learning benefits from drugs can be considered 'learning drugs' when long term effects present infact learning damage, is a dangerous positon to take.

Haha, I agree. It is most definately a neurotropic, in my book atleast.
Amphetamine's have wrecked my memory. I remember binging 3 or 4 months ago & I read a ton of Franz Kafka & I could not retain anything I read a couple days later when I was done to earth.
 
Last edited:
Amphetamine's have wrecked my memory. I remember binging 3 or 4 months ago & I read a ton of Franz Kafka & I could not retain anything I read a couple days later when I was done to earth.

Same experience here friend. I love philosophy myself, and I will be reading one of my favorite authors, have an idea, reach for a pen, and before I can find a sheet of paper I will have totally no clue even the general direction my thoughts were at or what I was thinking about.... I had a perfect memory just three years ago, at 26, friends commented at my photographic memory. I never touched drugs or drank alcohol. Though in one years amphetamine abuse, it all seemingly disintegrated. I keep hoping its mostly the fact that I am over-analyzing myself, but I just sometimes do not know what to think anymore, and it wasn't previously the case I don't think...

Amphetamine can be dextro- or levo- (or both; racemic) and Methamphetamine can be dextro- or levo- or racemic/both. The more centrally active of either is the dextro-rotatory due to the specific configuration of amphetamine class chemicals and the shape of neurally effected sites. Adderall is four different types, half racemic and half dextro-, most crystal meth is purely dextro these days (crank could more often be racemic) Dexedrine is just dextro-amphetamine.

Methamphetamine is quite a bit 'stronger' but mostly because your body cannot break it down as readily as with regular amphetamine; so it has more time to affect more transporters before it is broken down into ineffectual metabolites by enzymes in your brain or wherever in your body.
 
Metahmphetamine is also stronger and longer-lastning than regular old amphetamine because amphetamine is the primary metabolite.
 
Metahmphetamine is also stronger and longer-lastning than regular old amphetamine because amphetamine is the primary metabolite.

True; I omitted the obvious. Methamphetamine has the profile of amphetamine because it is/becomes amphetamine in vivo; in the same way that heroin yields morphine. However, nearly 50% of methamphetamine never metabolizes before being excreted. This is why there have been cases of meth-labs where the cookers (who when are also heavy users) keep their own urine, and extract half of what they've used themselves from it again. Cutting the losses of their own meth habit by half.

Reminds me of my friend and I on a humorous whim, me telling him that the uric acid would probably just break the dope down better, and me injecting him with his own piss instead of water. I suppose also if you didn't have any water, that your own urine would be superior to say, a mud puddle.
 
Reminds me of my friend and I on a humorous whim, me telling him that the uric acid would probably just break the dope down better, and me injecting him with his own piss instead of water. I suppose also if you didn't have any water, that your own urine would be superior to say, a mud puddle.

that's nasty
 
How much stronger is Methamphetamine in comparison to Amphetamine (or Dextro-amphetamine, I don't know if there's a difference between Dex-amp & amp... is there?).
There's an equivalent dose thread in the archives:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=377410

1mg d-methamphetamine =
2mg racemic methamphetamine =
2mg d-amphetamine =
4mg racemic amphetamine

That's for oral dosing but should be pretty much the same for any other route.
 
Top