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N&PD Moderators: Skorpio
What damages the brain/intelligence permanently more alcohol or cocaine?
- Thread starter fluxin
- Start date
apples and oranges? at the very least how do you compare quantities / dosages?
What consequence does "moderate" use of cocaine have?
I thought alcohol was inherently toxic i.e. carcinogenic and many more things... can cocaine not be administered as if it were prescribed ritalin? Cocaine is one of the common drugs that I have least experience with, but I thought that it was the heavy influence on dopamine reward pathways and the fact that moderate use may be even a lot less culturally common than moderate cocaine use...
Nagelfar
Bluelight Crew
Personally, from colloquial experience, I've met higher functioning severe crack / IV cocaine users who were more intellectually astute than the really worn down, go-into-deathly-GABAergic-withdrawal-without-it, wet-brain alcoholic types. Of course, cocaine abusers had different paranoia issues, but were more coherent over-all, in my opinion. Also the co-occurrence of nicotine smoking with crack smoking was so high, the entire "crack baby" epidemic couldn't truly be terse'd away from tobacco-baby low birth-weight syndromes. Whereas Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is extremely more serious in it's usual spectrum. (Having worked with those diagnosed as such [i.e. having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome] directly for many years when I was an RNA caregiver for the developmentally disabled.)
atara
Bluelighter
Neither alcohol nor cocaine is neurotoxic under ordinary conditions. What is this, a DARE forum? The primary mental health risk of alcohol and cocaine use is addiction, not neurotoxicity.
Alcohol causes long-term brain damage in two known ways: excitotoxicity can occur during severe alcohol withdrawal syndrome, and excessive alcohol use combined with poor diet can lead to thiamin deficiency. Cocaine causes vascular damage which can lead to a stroke, as well as contributing to malnutrition by suppressing appetite.
Burn it up
Bluelighter
I thought alcohol promoted apoptosis of neurons. But does this only happen in the developing brain or also in adults?
"ethanol, acting by a dual mechanism [blockade ofN-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors and excessive activation of GABAA receptors], triggers widespread apoptotic neurodegeneration in the developing rat forebrain." (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5455/1056)
"After 4 h, a single dose of ethanol induced upregulation of Bax, release of mitochondrial cytochrome-c into the cytosol, activation of caspase-3 and cleavage of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP-1), all of which promote apoptosis." (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390811003017)
"thanol intoxication of 7-day-old infant mice causes a widespread pattern of caspase-3 activation corresponding to the pattern of apoptotic neurodegeneration that is occurring simultaneously" (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969996101904759)
More: Neuroscience and Neurobehavior - The Neurotoxicity of Alcohol (http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/chap02e.pdf)
atara
Bluelighter
That's not what "neurotoxic" means.dez79 said:
Ladies and gentleman, the very next sentence of the abstract:Burn it up said:
All of the links you posted refer to the same phenomenon.Remember when you were a kid and to encourage you to participate in class parents/teachers told you there are no such thing as stupid questions? Questions like this are stupid, and you're stupid for having asked
I'm just having some fun with you, though this is a stupid question. What by I mean by that it's very hard to make absolute statements in response to questions like these. Even with well understood processes it's difficult, the heart, for example, is probably the most understood organ in the body, and even when talking about the heart, you would be hard pressed to provide any meaningful answer as to what is more cardiotoxic between 2 different drugs.
Be here you are asking the BRAIN, which we know next to nothing about, that's an exaggeration.... but not by much, esp when compared to our understanding of other organs like the heart. Given the limits of our understanding of the brain and its associated memory/cognitive abilities plus the fact that we are not clones and some people suffer profound cognitive issues from alcohol consumption, while others can consume many multiples to that of person A and suffer no such issues.
Here's the best I, or anyone else can do at the moment as it relates to your question-as with most drugs, taken in moderation, it's very unlikely either would result in long-term brain damage. Someone mentioned Thiamine deficiency in alcoholics which is absolutely right and this can lead to something called Wernicke/Korsakoff syndrome which can be devistating in terms of neurological decline, which is why we give Thiamine to every alcoholic that comes through the hospital.
So in he he spirit of HR I will say that given our inability to provide a useful answer and the fact neither is likely to cause lasting cognitive issues unless high levels of abuse are present, I say pick whichever one you prefer and use that. Hell go ahead and take them both in the same night sometimes. Now comes the part where everyone jumps in explaining now when cocaine is taken in conjunction w alcohol it produces coca ethylene which is more toxic than the sum of their parts. IMO while I don't dispute that cocaethylene is produces whn alc and coke are co administered, I think cocaethylene's toxicity is only marginally more cardiotoxic than pure cocaine. And think about how many times you've seen someone using coke whi ISNT drinking as well.Well, I would say it is pretty hard to define "neurotoxicity" with all kinds of drugs. Sometimes "watchable" damage isn't as bad as a good functioning network, which can be altered by most drugs. David McNutt said that alcohol is like a hand grenade in that regard.
I was on neuroleptics, but the short time was much worse side effect wise than any other drug related toxication (feelable damage isn't actual damage). Pretty much every drug leads to damage to neuron's by causing oxidative stress... But even if we lose some percent of our brain, a good functioning network is more important than mass. The best thing: You can improve it yourself.I think a lot of data would be confounded with impure cocaine. Wasn't there fairly recently a lot of cocaine cut with a chemotherapy drug? I'd wager that such a substance may additionally cause brain damage.
In the end, though, I would expect cocaine to bring one to a level of "insanity" more quickly than alcohol. But perhaps by virtue of people reaching that level sooner than an alcoholic would, they would stop soon enough so that significant brain damage would be avoided. It's hard to say.
depends on what you call "healthy". alcohol is always carcinogenic. the "health benefit" is that low doses (the optimum is at 3 glasses of wine a week) can actually increase your life expectancy if you are a man who is at risk for a myocardial infarction. women don't profit that much and men who don't have multiple risk factors for coronary heart disease also don't. for these people the increased risk for cancer outweighs the protective effects against coronary heart disease.
Nom de Plume
Bluelighter
Whoa! What a loaded question. Neither drug—in recreational doses not exceeding that of toxic doses—does not damage the brain or attenuate the intellect.
Alcohol actually enhances my verbal skills, and overall IQ, but with a diminished numerical ability. I should know—I'm all but obsessed with psychometric tests, and have taken IQ assessments (such as the WAIS and Stanford-Binet) pre- and post-intoxication. The pre-alcohol scores were lower by an average of 12 points under the post-alcohol scores, up to a certain level of intoxication (after >5 shots of 40% ABV alcohol, the scores were actually worse than if sober). Of course, I'm open to the possibility that these scores may have been affected by performance anxiety, which the alcohol may have alleviated. Notwithstanding, I still feel smarter, wittier, more eloquent, and quicker whilst inebriated than whilst sober—one of a dozen or so reasons for my excessive and frequent drinking.
As for cocaine—I feel it is similar to other stimulants, like amphetamines, in that it makes you sharper (as opposed to hollow) between the ears. Cocaine—pure cocaine— is an intellectual's drug. It makes one's brain as best it can be, not less.
Of course, the difference between a drug and a poison is the dosage. If one takes enough of any drug, I'm sure their brain—as well as a plethora of other organs—will sustain irreparable damage.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
Nom de plume said:
A confusing sentence with that double negative, but you've provided anecdotal references that should only be of significance to you. You can't really extrapolate all that much from your own experiences. At the same time, the OP's question is confusing; its hard to say whether they refer to acute or chronic brain damage, etc.
Nom de Plume
Bluelighter
That was a typo. The ''does not'' wasn't intentional; the two words' omission, and the correction of the verb "damage" to "damages" and "attentuate" to "attenuates", should be a sufficient prevention for your solecism-provoked cardiac arrest.
Is that not all that matters? I'm kidding.
The experiences of anyone else are not different in this regarded, too. However, empirical evidence is apparently the only evidence available. Is there some pertinent source not reliant on a posteriori knowledge of which you're aware? Science seems silent on this issue, at least from my research.
Indeed. Moreover, we're not told if we should consider the neurotoxicity of each drug in terms of quantity (e.g., which drug has the most neurotoxic minimal and/or maximal recreational dose; or which drug has the most neurotoxic effective lethal dose), time (e.g., which drug is most neurotoxic over x days of use; or which drug is most neurotoxic over the average lifetime of their respective addicts), or as a function of both quantity and time (e.g., which drug is most neurotoxic over x time and with y quantity—where y is given as an equal proportion based on the ratio of each drug's ED50 and its dose).
Apart from quantity, time, quantity relative to ED50, quantity per time, and quantity relative to ED50 per time, we also don't know many other important details and qualifications of the OP.
For me, everything is approximately as ambiguous as is this thread. Welcome to my world.Last edited:InterestingFACT
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2013
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- 512
Nice replies I guess I should stop worrying then.
I wouldn't say that.
The degree to which you should worry is dependent on the degree to which you allow yourself to abuse these drugs and/or the degree to which you allow these drugs to compromise healthy lifestyle choices (IE. good nutrition, hygiene, regular sleep).
The reality is that (many? some?) abusers of drugs do suffer negative health consequences including cognitive decline as a result of their drug abuse. This decline is probably not due to neurotoxicity, and may even be recoverable when abuse ceases. But just because a drug isn't "neurotoxic" doesn't mean that abuse of that drug will have no consequences.
Sleep deprivation and poor nutrition are each associated with cognition and memory problems, early onset of neurodegenerative diseases, and declining cardiovascular health (including increased risk for stroke or heart attack). These are lifestyle choices with very real health consequences. Don't let your stimulant use neglect these things.
Alcohol also has its risks--which are well-publicized. Neurological damage is definitely possible through glutamatergic storm-- when in withdrawal.
The bottom line is that neither of these drugs are inherently going to make you dumb, but drug abuse just might. So moderation, as always, is key.
