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Is Addiction to Ecstasy,
Alcohol, and Gambling an
Altered State of
Consciousness?
Hugo Martinez
Lauren Heintz
Daniel Braun
Vinita Khilnani
Nicole Gallelli
OUTLINE
• Ecstasy
– Facts + Description
– Short Term and Long Term Effects
• Alcohol
– Facts + Description
– Short Term and Long Term Effects
• Gambling
– Facts + Description
– Gambling and Alcohol
– Effects of Gambling Addiction
• Addiction’s Role as an A.S.C.
OBJECTIVE
• Our goal is to explore why the abuse of
Ecstasy, Alcohol, and Gambling results in
addiction and therefore an altered state of
consciousness
• We are not claiming that all addictions
lead to an ASC, but these three do.
• Addiction is a compulsion which perpetuates
itself. It can be for a substance or an activity
Facts about Ecstasy
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4.5% of 12th graders
3.0% of 10th graders
2.1% of 8th graders (past year)
Continuous use → irreversible
depression
• Ecstasy → deaths from heat
exhaustion & kidney &
cardiovascular sys. failure
• Can increase body temp.
to 109˚F
What is ECSTASY?
• Ecstasy (MDMA) is a Schedule I, psychoactive
drug, synthetic entactogen of the
phenethylamine family
• Primary effect = stimulate the secretion of &
inhibit the re-uptake of serotonin & dopamine &
norepinephrine in the brain
• Serotonin has role in the regulation of mood,
sleep, and sexuality
• Depression & anxiety & crucial in liver
regeneration
• Drug is stimulant with hallucinogenic properties
Who Uses Ecstasy & HOW??
• Who- young adults at clubs, raves,
concerts, “all-night parties”
• Available in tablet form
• How it feels- positive feeling, empathy for others,
elimination of anxiety & extreme relaxation
• Suppress the NEED to eat, drink, sleep, endure multiday parties
• Creates heightened sexual experience & sensory
perception
• ‘Rush' → calm & sense of well being to those around,
often w/ heightened perception of color & sound
Affects & the BRAIN
• Short Term- 3-6 hrs. after depletion of serotonin
– Psychological difficulties
– Adverse Physical symptoms
• Long Term Effects
– degeneration of neurons
– Parkinson's disease
MDMA Structure
ALCOHOL RELATED FACTS
DUI STATISTICS
• COLLISION FATALITIES
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250,000 people have died in the past 10 yrs.
25,000 are killed each yr. w/ 500 killed each week
71 people are killed each day
Two million alcohol related collisions each yr.
Most widely used and abused drugs known
Every 20 min. an American life is lost due to alcohol related crashes
IMPAIRMENTS
• Decreased state of awareness
• Judgment and rational process become impaired
• Self-control diminishes
• Chronic alcoholism leads to severe memory deficits
• Clumsiness, staggering, unsteadiness, impaired vision and moral judgments
NEUROLOGICAL EFFECTS OF
ALCOHOL USE
 Set and Expectancy
 Dilates peripheral vessels
• Increase in blood amount circulating through skin
 Acts directly on membrane of neuron
• Render it unable to process information normally
 Enhances activity at NT GABA at receptor cites
 Nerve cells in the ascending reticular activating system are affected
• Disruption of cortical activity
 Induced sleep from alcohol is abnormal
• Slow-waves and REM cycles greatly reduced
• Stage shifts occur more frequently
 Affects endogenous opioid system
• May be reason for desiring more alcohol.
NEUROLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL
ABUSE/ADDICTION
ADAPTATIONS OF THE REWARD SYSTEM AFTER CHRONIC
ALCOHOL USE
 Dopamine
• Substantial decrements in VTA DA neuron activity and NAc
DA levels
• Leads to hypofunction of mesolimbic reward pathway
• Decreased DA release up to 2 mnths. after ethanol withdrawal
 Extended Amygdala
 Extends from NAc shell and BNST  central amygdala (CeA)
 Ethanol enhances DA release in CeA
 BNST shows high sensitivity to DA activating actions of
drugs of abuse including ethanol
 Levels of CRF in CeA indicates dysregulation after ethanol
withdrawal
 CRF levels in BNST elevated during acute ethanol withdrawal
THE OPIOID SYSTEM IN ALCOHOL ADDICTION
• Alcohol stimulates the release of beta endorphins
– May be cause of feelings of euphoria and anesthesia
• Interactions between NAc DA transmission and DA-independent effects via
opioid systems are implicated in ethanol reinforcement
• Ethanol increases endorphins (endogenous opioids) in NAc
• Treatments for alcoholism have focused on opioid receptor antagonists
(ORA)
– ORA’s blunt ethanol induced DA release within NAc
– Leads to suppression of ethanol intake (drinking)
GABA FUNCTION IN ALCOHOL ADDICTION
• Chronic alcohol use results in decreased sensitivity of GABA-A receptors to
both alcohol and GABA itself.
• Creates increased tolerance to effects of alcohol
• Damage to GABA inhibitory system CNS tends toward hyperexcitability
– Anxiety
– Tremors
– Disorientation and Hallucinations
• Increases sensitivity of glutamate receptors
– Further CNS hyperexcitability
Gambling Related Statistics
• From a recent U.S. national survey (19992004)
– 90% of adults gamble
– 5% of these are pathological gamblers
– 33% of pathological gamblers are addicted to
alcohol
• What is gambling?
The Interrelationship of Alcohol and
Gambling
• Pathological Gambling (PG) is a brain disease relatable to
alcoholism and drug addiction
• Both Alcoholism and PG are co-morbid disorders
• The U of Michigan’s Alcohol Screening Test reports:
– Win cues in gambling prompt problem drinkers to drink
– more severe alcohol problems coincide with associations
made between gambling wins and alcohol concepts in
memory
– Alcohol’s down regulation of inhibitions exponentially effects
one’s addictive behavior while gambling
Addiction and Gambling
• Pathological Gambling addiction is…
– a process addiction
– Correlates with shifting one’s subjective state
– Function of the psychological “set” and “setting”
– A heterogeneous disorder with biopsychosocial variables
The Neurobiology of PG
• Directly up-regulates our serotonin
adrenaline, and dopamine systems
• Dopamine release translates a
motivated drive into a behavioral
action
• Tendency to have abnormalities in
the ventromedial (VM) sector of the
prefrontal cortex
• decision-making depends in many
important ways on neural
substrates that regulate
homeostasis, emotion, and feeling
• These are inhibited as PG
addiction results in a dysfunction of
the prefrontal cortex
Addiction’s Roles as an ASC
Theories
• Addictions are unattended consequences of
genetic variation of the “decision making
apparatus” which are all either behavioral
addictions (instinct) or NT substitutes
• Hypothesized to access the same
neurophysiological mechanisms as natural
learning systems
– Momentary increase in dopamine from drug use
continuous to drive learning, forcing brain to over
select choices which leads to obtaining drugs
Continued…
• Neuro-Imaging studies point directly the
importance of inter connections between prefrontal & all cortical limbic regions & sub-cortical
motor systems in addiction to all drugs of abuse
examined
• The pathway for an addictive state is always a
subjective experience. Activities that reliably
shift human experience hold addictive attention
• Addiction is a shift in normal experience,
therefore addiction is an ASC
References
Gambling
•
• Netherlands, Springer Journal of Gambling Studies. Vol. 19-21,Spring 20032006). New York: Human Sciences Press. <www.springerlink.com>
Alcohol
• http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/content/full/160/1/1
• http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/thehypoismaddisctionhypothesis/
• http://www.addictionsciencenet/ASNbiological.htm
Extasy
• http://www.ycdrugcourt.org/ecstasy.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
• http://www.narconon.ca/Ecstasy.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin
QUESTIONS ?