Drugs and Psychostimulants
All drugs and stimulants of the brain can affect how someone learns, consolidates, and retrieves certain memories. For example, cocaine blocks the reuptake of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain, causing an increase of dopamine in the synaptic cleft. This will elicit a rewarding feeling of liberation and security that can become addictive to some people. Although, because of the increased dopamine levels in the brain, consolidation of memory can be affected which will then inhibit the chances of recovering that memory. Studies show that rats who were given cocaine were unable to perform motor tasks as successfully as the control group. Also, cannabis has also shown negative effects regarding the ability to spontaneously recover memories because the plasticity strength of the initial memories are so inhibited due to the reduced neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft.
Another relation of drugs to spontaneous recovery is the incidences regarding relapse. A recovered addict can be presented with stimuli that spontaneously recover motivational feelings that are believed to cause the relapse. The longer the extinction period of the abstinence from the drug, the more vulnerable to person is to relapsing spontaneously. For example, cocaine addicts who are thought to be "cured" can experience an irresistible impulse to use the drug again if they are subsequently confronted by a stimulus with strong connections to the drug, such as a white powder.
Read more about this topic: Spontaneous Recovery
Famous quotes containing the word drugs:
“If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they’re killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We’d not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.”
—Spike Lee (b. 1956)