brain rceptors

Is it true that there are brain receptores thats only purpose is to react with cannaboids?

 

yes, cannabinoid receptors, react with both introduced cannabinoids(from marijuana) and by our own natural cannabinoids (endocannabinoids).

 

man, that sounds complicated

 

what are brain receptores

 

there are CB1 and CB2 receptor systems in the brain. (a receptor is like a little lock that only gets activated by particular chemicals; there are billions of them in the brain and are grouped by function to help elucidate their general roles). CB1 (CannaBinoid 1) are scattered throughout the brain and relate to endogenous cannabinoids and introduced cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); the CB1 system affects many other brain areas related to natural reward, attention, learning, etc. CB2 are in the peripheral body and are thought to also be relevant to immune function.

Cannabinoid receptors have evolved in vertebrate animals for at least the past 500 million years, indicating the cannabinoids are a natural--and essential--part of life.

 

is that what produces a high

 

thats really interesting.

where did you learn that? haha

 

^ yeah thats what i wanna know lol

 

although i know purplegel is very smart and has a large base of knowledge, ANYONE can get this information off of the internet, most just don't care to find it.

most don't really care how or why a substance is affecting them as long as it feels good.

 

exactly. A simple google search will return plenty of helpful results.

 

I just accept it as a blessing and try not to worry about the details. lol

Interesting to know, though.

 

^ yessir

 

wuh?

 

hahaha

 

so this may or may not help you?

what i've written here is an easy-to-understand portrait of the way the brain works, in general. it's simplified, but it should hopefully give any person with little to no understanding of neuroscience a good idea of what's going on in there. i majored in psychology/neuroscience/psychopharmacology in college--the point being that i genuinely enjoy writing about this stuff (yeah, yeah....) because it is my academic interest and i am happy to spend several minutes sharing this stuff with you all. if one person reads it and gets something good out of it, then i'll be happy. it's basically neuroscience 101, for all those who are interested.



when the CB1 receptors are activated (i.e. when you smoke pot), it results in the high, as you know. it can be very complicated, but it basically comes down to "simple" electrical/chemical actions. the weed just sort of alters your brain functioning, temporarily. oh, and don't be scared by that statement, as EVERYTHING (e.g. food, thoughts, emotions, etc) alters your brain in one way or another....

let's begin by imagining the brain as a vast universe full of billions of cells, each with their own special role, that communicate with one another at lightning-fast speeds in order to create your everyday, breathing, conscious existence. when there is an increase in cellular activity (e.g. among the cannabinoid system), it means, generally, that the receptors (the parts of the brain cells that receive electrochemical input from other, nearby cells) are being signaled at a greater-than-normal rate (either the signal frequency has increased or the frequency is the same but the signal intensity has increased). when a receptor is signaled with greater frequency or intensity, it increases the likelihood that the cell will "fire," or pass its signal on to the other cells that directly communicate (connect) with the cell. like i said, the receptor is the part of the cell that receives the signals from other cells. it then tells the rest of its own cell that "yes, these signals are indeed strong" and gets the cell to communicate the signal to the neighboring cell. (PLEASE REFER TO THE FIGURES AT THE BOTTOM). what you end up with is a cascade of neural circuit activation--an enormous network of brain cells branching out in a web-like fashion, all influencing each other in this manner. oh, and it does all this in tiny fractions of seconds....

does it make sense that there are receptors for lots of different things? it may be helpful to imagine the lock and key analogy: the receptor is a lock that can only be "opened" by a certain key. so, cannabinoid receptors respond ONLY to cannabinoids and serotonin receptors respond ONLY to serotonin molecules. when you take an SSRI for depression, OCD, eating disorders, etc, or when you take a psychedelic, you're ALTERING your brain's serotonin levels and functioning. there are receptors for everything, basically. the important thing to remember is that there are many, many different receptor types, and each type of receptor respond to different brain chemicals.

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) is another naturally occuring neurotransmitter (a brain chemical) that pretty much acts as a protector against neural (brain cell) OVERactivation. that is, it's inhibitory by nature, and it keeps the brain's overall activity at normal levels (if there was nothing to keep the brain cells' signaling in check, we'd be constantly having epileptic seizures as a result of TOO much neural activity).

the reason why i mentioned GABA (one of MANY, MANY endogenous brain chemicals) is because all of you will have likely have had experience with the drug alcohol. alcohol, like most drugs, affects more than one brain chemical, but for our purposes, right now, it only affects GABA. alcohol is what we call a "GABA agonist," which means that it encourages GABA activity by, as i mentioned earlier, increasing the frequency or intensity of GABA signals that are being received by GABA receptors. remembering the neural network cascade, we can quickly see that this effect will spread to other brain areas. that is, other parts of the brain will now be receiving stronger-than-normal GABA signals. and, since GABA is inhibitory by nature, it DEPRESSES all the brain areas that contain the chemical GABA (every brain area has different neurotransmitters and different ratios of these chemicals). as a result, you get "high" from alcohol because it has altered your GABA:

the symptoms of drug intoxication reflect the chemicals and brain areas that are affected. so when you drink, you affect GABA, which is found all over the brain; the result is that you have difficulty balancing (GABA is in the cerebellum, a brain area responsible for coordination, movement, etc), difficulty making sound decisions (GABA is in the prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational decision making), and in high enough doses, you have respiratory depression (GABA is in the brain stem, which is responsible for regulating vital life functions: heart rate, breathing, etc).

the euphoric effect from alcohol is more complicated because it involves GABA's interaction with OTHER brain chemicals such as one called dopamine, that is a key player in making us feel good. it's the essence of the "pleasure center" of the brain. lots of addictive drugs, interesting, like cocaine, heroin, and nicotine affect this "reward" part of the brain. normally an organism receives pleasure from mitigating the tension brought on by basic, instinctual drives. that is to say that pleasure comes from simple things like food and sex. now, people and animals can become addicted to even food and sex.... but, addiction is more likely when the person discovers something stronger than the natural reinforcers; something like cocaine or heroin are capable of causing as much or more pleasure as food and sex. the brain loves it and, if experienced enough times, it will begin craving it.

so marijuana, we know, affects CB1 receptors in the brain. like GABA receptors, these receptors are found all over the brain, except for in the brain stem, which is one of the reasons marijuana is a "safe" drug. since CB1 receptors are not linked with vital life functions, even blacking out from marijuana will not interfere with regular breathing or heart rate (alcohol and opiates generally cause death by respiratory depression). weed does affect other areas, obviously, which make it responsible for all the fun symptoms we know and love (or hate). it alters attention, memory, learning, eating, the senses, creativity, etc. and it can do each of these things because the areas of the brain responsible for these various aspects of conscious life just so happen to contain CB1 receptors.




FIGURES


figure 1. an illustration of a brain cell. the dendrites are the branches that contain the cell's receptors. these same branches network the brain cells together. (known as dendritic branching, this allows for the brain to communicate effectively. this event is very profound during childhood and then undergoes pruning during adolescence, whereby unused cell branches are destroyed). receiving information through the receptors, on through the dendrites, the cell body initiates the electrical signal and sends it down the axon to the terminals. the terminals store the particular chemicals, depending on what type of cell this is (if it were a cannabinoid cell, it would have receptors for cannabinoids and would release more cannabinoids from the terminal, thereby passing on its "cannabinoid" signal).


figure 2. two connected neurons (brain cells). when chemicals are released from the axon terminals (the pink branches at the end of cell A's axon), they are received by the receptors on another cell (cell B). the "synapse" is the fancy word for where the neurotransmission takes place--where the chemicals from one cell are physically passed to another cell. this is the manner in which brain cells are interconnected; they all touch each other and pass on information through electrochemical processes. in sum, when the the incoming signal from a neighboring brain cell is strong enough to elicit an electrical response that is above the cell's threshold, it causes an electrical signal to be generated in the cell body and sent down the axon to the terminals, where it signals the next cell. repeat that same process again... and again...

 

And you enjoyed it?!?!?!?! Sorry bro, just busting on ya I live with 2 people who are currently in the middle of the same situation and we argue non stop

 

you argue about whether or not it's enjoyable? i love psychopharmacology. i don't know anyone who doesn't! drugs and brains.... fun fun.

 

No, of course not! Only argue about methods of treatment for certain disorders ( ) and classification of disorders, generalizng. I just dont dig it that's all

 

yeah, the DSM is a work in progress. it's impossible to develop a perfect system that can account for everyone and every thing.

i hope you're not assuming, however, that just because someone studies neuroscience they are also friends with the pharmaceutical and clinical industries. knowing how the brain works is a completely separate field from clinical work with patients. i'd like to go on record saying that i strongly disagree with the way mental disorders are often treated. although there are some cases where i fully support the use of pharmaceutical drugs in order to give someone the hope of having somewhat of a functional life, in general, i believe that we're in a time of gross overprescription that is negatively affecting society. and it will catch up with us.

so yeah, please don't assume that everyone in the field of psychology agrees with current practices or believes things should be a certain way. it sounds like you have a beef with the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. i just want to make sure you keep that between you and revision IV--don't take it out on me or other people in the field who may not agree with mainstream american medicine.

 

The world would suck if we didnt have a God to guide this so called evoloution. Well, if there werent a God, we wouldnt have existence period. Oh wait sorry everyone, i almost forgot that the earth, stars, gravity, humans, animals, the sky, the sun, millions of galaxies, the weather, etc. were all created through evolution or the big bang.
PSH, silly atheists.