What the 5 most addictive substances do to your brain
Addiction experts weigh in on what the most addictive drugs in the world do to your brain.
1. Heroin
Addiction experts rank heroin as the most addictive drug in the world. In animal experiments, the opiate causes the level of dopamine in the brain’s reward system to increase by up to 200 per cent. It’s also one of the most dangerous drugs as overdoses are likely, with the dosage of heroin that can cause death being only five times greater than the dose for a high.
2. Alcohol
It’s not an illegal substance but alcohol is considered the second more addictive substance, with lab experiments showing ingestion of alcohol increases dopamine levels in the brain’s reward system by 40 to 360 per cent. The World Health Organisation estimated that three million people died in 2012 due to the damaging effects of alcohol on the body.
3. Cocaine
It is estimated that between 14 to 20 million people worldwide use cocaine. Experts rank crack cocaine as the third most damaging drug and powdered cocaine as the fifth most damaging. The drug prevents your brain from turning the dopamine signal off, which results in heightened and abnormal activity in the brain’s reward pathways.
4. Barbiturates (“downers”)
They’re called various things like blue bullets, gorillas, nembies, barbs and pink ladies, but barbiturates were originally used to treat anxiety and to induce sleep. The drug interferes with signalling in the brain, effectively shutting down various brain regions. At low doses, the drug can cause euphoria, but at high doses it can shut down breathing.
5. Nicotine
The main addictive ingredient of tobacco, nicotine, is a powerfully addictive drug. When you smoke a cigarette, nicotine is absorbed into the lungs and delivered to the brain, causing dopamine levels in the brain’s reward system to rise by about 25 to 40 per cent. In 2002, the WHO estimated there were more than one billion smokers worldwide. Tobacco is estimated to kill more than eight million people annually by 2030.
Source: The Conversation
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