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Opiates and serotonin delpletion.

D

Deleted member 137730

Greenlighter
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Sep 21, 2009
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I have a friend who used to do alot of ecstasy, and this friend cant get high off of opiates anymore (maybe slightly but not like before) and especially immediately after taking alot of ecstasy.

Do you need some serotonin in your brain to be able to get high off opiates, I would think not but it doesnt seem to be the case.

Anyway there seems to be some connection between the opiate high and serotonin maybe through some down stream mechanism.

If any peeps have any input im curious.
 
I don't think Serotonin has ANYTHING to do with opiates. The only opiates that I can think of are Tramadol and a few other opiods that affect serotonin reuptake.
 
^ That's what I'm saying.

Two totally different types of receptors being acted upon, then they have nothing to do with each other.

So, if he didn't get high, he simply did not take enough.
 
ok, so he doesnt feel high. thats a very subjecetive thing base on emotions and expectations and jesus and unicorns.

i bet he still feels like takin a nap though.

i doubt there is any particularly interesting relationship between 5HT and mu in regards to the opiate high. i bet he just did x too many times and has probably damaged some dopaminergic neurons. he just isnt able to elicit the same euphoria anymore.
 
ecstasy shouldnt damage dopamine neurons at any dose, so thats a no.

As far as dose, my friend can take 50 mg oxycodone in a navie-ish state and feel little high.

There must be some connection here. Opiate dont just stop working.
 
You still have to remember that HUMANS and MICE are COMPLETELY different animals.

Look into Olney's Lesions and how they are not proven in humans but show in mice (rats?).
 
true, and that particular article is showing selective damage to the nigrostriatal pathway, and not the mesolimbic (of course mice are different, so that doesnt rule out mesolimbic damage in humans). but it does show the potential of MDMA to damage dopaminergic neurons.

most of the scary stuff i have read is related to very high doses that are repeated. but there are plenty of people that overindulge.

also, people always bring up olneys lesions to discredit animal models. however, there are many animal studies with mechanisms that have been proven in humans. we arent that different from mice.
 
maybe from the use of mdma, it releases all of his endorphins, which is what opiates do when you use... So since he already took mdma, he already used up most of his endorphins.

Thus, making his tolerance very high. Like, maybe he needs to eat more fats and oils to get more endorphins flowing.

Sorry if this is totally wrong, im just going off of what I've heard, and trying to connect the dots.
 
I thought endorphins acted on mu like opiates, just to a lesser extent. I don't think you really "use up" your endorphins as such, but if you abuse opiates you get a tolerance to their effects. I didn't know MDMA acted on endorphins significantly, if it did, he'd have got withdrawal when stopping MDMA.
 
I don't really know how it works... and yeah, I don't think it works like the same way opiates do.
But I think that's why I've heard of people getting hemorrhages from E abuse because endorphins like help stop thhat I think.
 
well if you damage serotonergic neurons with mdma, which is a well established phenomena, then there certainly could be a problem. When you activate opioid receptors they in turn activate a whole cascade of other receptors, neurons using gaba, serotonin and dopamine all come together to create the 'high'. Damaged serotonin neurones could knock a chunk out the high. He may need to take higher doses than he previously would have to get an equal effect. Or the emotional effects of opioids may always be slightly different to those of somebody who had not taken so much ecstasy.
 
ThuzzY said:
well if you damage serotonergic neurons with mdma, which is a well established phenomena, then there certainly could be a problem. When you activate opioid receptors they in turn activate a whole cascade of other receptors, neurons using gaba, serotonin and dopamine all come together to create the 'high'. Damaged serotonin neurones could knock a chunk out the high. He may need to take higher doses than he previously would have to get an equal effect. Or the emotional effects of opioids may always be slightly different to those of somebody who had not taken so much ecstasy.
Click to expand...

This i agree with.
 
bben said:
I have a friend who used to do alot of ecstasy, and this friend cant get high off of opiates anymore (maybe slightly but not like before) and especially immediately after taking alot of ecstasy.

Do you need some serotonin in your brain to be able to get high off opiates, I would think not but it doesnt seem to be the case.

Anyway there seems to be some connection between the opiate high and serotonin maybe through some down stream mechanism.

If any peeps have any input im curious.
Click to expand...

The serotoninergic system could act as a modulator for a lot of others circuits (including the ones who use dopamine), but in this case this is irrelevant.
The use of MDMA has probably nothing to do with the "problem" of your friend.
Either your he has developed a very high tolerance for opiates or he's doing the wrong stuff/dose.
 
Eleusinian said:
The serotoninergic system could act as a modulator for a lot of others circuits (including the ones who use dopamine), but in this case this is irrelevant.
The use of MDMA has probably nothing to do with the "problem" of your friend.
Either your he has developed a very high tolerance for opiates or he's doing the wrong stuff/dose.
Click to expand...

This is the same thing I was thinking.
 
I'm pretty sure opiates are serotonergic as they can contribute to serotonin syndrome. It would be interesting to see how they did this if they didn't affect serotonin levels!

MeDieViL said:
MDMA neurotoxiticy is never proven in humans, this is just some form of cross tolerance.
Click to expand...
While it's currently against general ethical guidelines to, say, give someone MDMA everyday for a year and look at their brain, the mass of anecdotal evidence says that repeated use of MDMA likely has some long-term detrimental effect on neural health (as do most other drugs, including but not limited to benzos, DRAs, alcohol, etc). Pure MDMA probably has less effect than many people, particularly those who use themselves as yardsticks, would imagine, since many pills are cut with speed (or pipes, or some weird shit), and I wouldn't be surprised to find amphetamine increases MDMA's neurotoxicity (beyond, and possibly far beyond, what you'd see with either one alone) since it seems to cause MDAI to become neurotoxic where it wasn't before.

That said, primate brains have been more resistant than rat brains to e.g. Olney's lesions, at least so far.
 
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