Confused. My rehab phychaitrist told me opiate hitting the MU receptor then triggers the dopamine release thus giving the high......This confused me a tad as coke and ritalin both are incredibly strong dopamine agonists yet they are both thee stims excluding amphetamines yet opiates are a depressant mellow dreamy buzz. I realise dopamine receptor sites has many different sub receptors like serotonin....is this whats going on?
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BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards
Explain dopamine to me.....
- Thread starter Ethan-ate
- Start date
neurotic
Bluelighter
i don't think it's that simple...
wezface
Bluelighter
It's really not that simple. Very basically, dopamine agonists can cause a feeling of well-being. But there's a LOT more going on with these chemicals and their mechanisms of action. For instance, some dopamine agonists are used to treat RLS and have little to no recreational value (in fact, some people get just "weird" on dopamine agonists-obsessive, etc)
Head over to NPD and do some reading, or start at the basic level on Wikipedia and move up from there.
Head over to NPD and do some reading, or start at the basic level on Wikipedia and move up from there.
PotatoMan
Bluelight Crew
A lot of hormones are responsible for a feeling. Rarely just one. Maybe never.. idk
shreddedlettuce
Bluelighter
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Dopamine is the brain's "reward" system.
It naturally occurs when a person achieves an objective. This could be anything eg. you are hungry and then you eat, so you solved the hunger issue - dopamine is released.
The problem with medication is that we can get this "reward" feeling or like others have said the "feel good" by cheating our brains eg. don't have to do anything to feel rewarded so just swallow a pill. Which ultimately defeats us instead of rewarding us.
It's all subjective at the end of the day so just be careful when trying too hard to get this dopamine release without actually achieving anything.
Inspiration is key IME, and I just wanted to share my thoughts on this dopamine query.
Once you can get that dopamine "rush" without taking drugs and by doing something that makes you feel good and is a positive influence on your life - hold onto what you did, never let it go no matter what the price.
Just my 2 cents worth and I hope my post makes sense, cause I got a little "rush" just posting it without any chemical assistance.
SL
It naturally occurs when a person achieves an objective. This could be anything eg. you are hungry and then you eat, so you solved the hunger issue - dopamine is released.
The problem with medication is that we can get this "reward" feeling or like others have said the "feel good" by cheating our brains eg. don't have to do anything to feel rewarded so just swallow a pill. Which ultimately defeats us instead of rewarding us.
It's all subjective at the end of the day so just be careful when trying too hard to get this dopamine release without actually achieving anything.
Inspiration is key IME, and I just wanted to share my thoughts on this dopamine query.
Once you can get that dopamine "rush" without taking drugs and by doing something that makes you feel good and is a positive influence on your life - hold onto what you did, never let it go no matter what the price.
Just my 2 cents worth and I hope my post makes sense, cause I got a little "rush" just posting it without any chemical assistance.
SL
_space_cadet_
Greenlighter
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- Apr 30, 2015
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It is a catecholamine neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, retina, and sympathetic ganglia, acting within the brain to help regulate movement and emotion: Put simply, dopamine is behind a lot of the desire we associate with eating and sexual intercourse. Similarly, all addictive drugs trigger dopamine (the "craving neurochemical") to stimulate the pleasure/reward center. So do gambling, shopping, overeating and other, seemingly unrelated, activities. Go shopping: dopamine. Smoke a cigarette: dopamine. Computer games: dopamine. Heroin: dopamine. Orgasm: dopamine. They all work somewhat differently on the brain, but all raise your dopamine. Heroin supposedly got the nickname 'dope' from dopamine.
SixBuckets
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Think of the neurotransmitters that affect mood as the lights mixing in a teevee display: it's not as simple as "red/green/blue". Depending on the proportions of these colours and how they are mixed, you can get a huge range of images. It's kind of the same with neurotransmitters and receptors - there's a relatively small number of them, but different drugs make them do very different things in very different proportions.
Mista3Mystery
Greenlighter
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- Dec 4, 2008
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The fact that mu opioid receptors cause downstream dopamine release when they're stimulated is what causes the drug to be enjoyable and thus reinforcing (activating/creating motivational circuits in your brain for the acquisition and consumption of the drug). The stimulation of the mu receptor has many other effects, including the mellow dreamy buzz you're talking about, partly by removing the inhibitions of neurons which secrete GABA (which broadly inhibits activity in the brain).
Now drugs like ritalin, on the other hand, are not strictly dopamine agonists. Ritalin in particular is a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, and it will cause chemical signals emitted by dopamine or norepinephrine-secreting cells to be stronger, by forcing those chemicals to stay in contact with the receiving cells for a brief moment longer. But when you're talking about an organ as complex as the brain you have to be careful when making simplifications, like comparing the indirect dopamine release of opioids and the dopamine signal enhancement of stimulants. Opiods cause the release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain (nucleus accumbens and its projections), but stimulants nonselectively enhance the signal in whichever parts of the brain they infiltrate.
The brainstem, for example, is very important for wakefulness - there is something called the reticular activating system which is directly tied to the wakeful state. If it's destroyed you go into a permanent coma. Stimulants enhance the signalling of the brainstem and other related areas of the brain causing their stereotypical increase in wakefulness. That's just one example though; they affect many other systems including systems important for the regulation of impulses and attention and perseverance.
Very high, prolonged doses of amphetamines will cause dogs to display endless hunting behaviors, as if they're stealthily chasing prey which doesn't exist. The systems in place to allow the dog to feel satisfaction or a sense of completion are disrupted, preventing it from sensing that it's putting too much effort into something that's providing no benefit. The same effect is seen in humans, where they'll pick at hair follicles or minor imperfections in their skin, needing to feel that sense of having removed a problem but never receiving the signal of satisfaction or completion. Alternatively they'll pick at carpet fibers or rant about topics over and over.
It's hard to separate all of the systems in the brain and the chemicals they use to communicate into distinct compartments with clear-cut cause and effect relationships, because there are so many feedback mechanisms in place and projections to and from many other places. It's important to think about not only the chemicals and receptors involved in a drug's effects, but also to consider its distribution in different parts of the brain, and the big picture view of its influence on different neural circuits (systems across the brain connected by neuronal projections).
Now drugs like ritalin, on the other hand, are not strictly dopamine agonists. Ritalin in particular is a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, and it will cause chemical signals emitted by dopamine or norepinephrine-secreting cells to be stronger, by forcing those chemicals to stay in contact with the receiving cells for a brief moment longer. But when you're talking about an organ as complex as the brain you have to be careful when making simplifications, like comparing the indirect dopamine release of opioids and the dopamine signal enhancement of stimulants. Opiods cause the release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain (nucleus accumbens and its projections), but stimulants nonselectively enhance the signal in whichever parts of the brain they infiltrate.
The brainstem, for example, is very important for wakefulness - there is something called the reticular activating system which is directly tied to the wakeful state. If it's destroyed you go into a permanent coma. Stimulants enhance the signalling of the brainstem and other related areas of the brain causing their stereotypical increase in wakefulness. That's just one example though; they affect many other systems including systems important for the regulation of impulses and attention and perseverance.
Very high, prolonged doses of amphetamines will cause dogs to display endless hunting behaviors, as if they're stealthily chasing prey which doesn't exist. The systems in place to allow the dog to feel satisfaction or a sense of completion are disrupted, preventing it from sensing that it's putting too much effort into something that's providing no benefit. The same effect is seen in humans, where they'll pick at hair follicles or minor imperfections in their skin, needing to feel that sense of having removed a problem but never receiving the signal of satisfaction or completion. Alternatively they'll pick at carpet fibers or rant about topics over and over.
It's hard to separate all of the systems in the brain and the chemicals they use to communicate into distinct compartments with clear-cut cause and effect relationships, because there are so many feedback mechanisms in place and projections to and from many other places. It's important to think about not only the chemicals and receptors involved in a drug's effects, but also to consider its distribution in different parts of the brain, and the big picture view of its influence on different neural circuits (systems across the brain connected by neuronal projections).