Cocaine Flashcards
What is another name for cocaine?
- benzoylmethylecgonine
What category of chemicals is cocaine in?
- alkaloids
What is the botanical origin of alkaloids?
- coca
What neurotransmitters are related to cocaine?
- serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine
- however doesn’t resemble the structure
What is Coca-Cola?
- coca leaf (coca) and kola nut (caffeine)
- remove coca from leaf (“decocanized flavour essence”)
- formula change (no kola nut)
In what ways is coca administrated? What effects does this have?
- chewing, tea
- alleviate fatigue, appetite suppressant
- reduce pain (little research)
In what ways is cocaine administrated?
- inhaled
- insufflated/injected
What are the forms of cocaine that are inhaled?
- paste: leaves mixed with organic solvent (kerosine or gasoline) and smoked with tobacco (toxic)
- freebase: extract with solvent (explosive)
- crack: mixed with baking soda and water (safer)
What forms of cocaine are insufflated/injected?
- hydrochloride: salt form of freebase
- potency increases with successive extractions
On a cellular level, what does cocaine do?
- reuptake inhibitor in mesolimbic dopamine pathway
- antagonist to sodium channels
How does cocaine function as a reuptake inhibitor?
- blocks a transporter protein
- results in post-synaptic reactivation
What effects results in reuptake inhibition by cocaine?
- feelings of pleasure
- with acute doses, positive symptoms of schizophrenia
What areas of the brains are affected by reuptake inhibition by cocaine?
- nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex (delusions, disordered thought and speech)
- ventral tegmental area (reward)
What is the problem with limbic reuptake inhibition implying emotions are involved?
- dopamine is rewarding but difficult to distinguish from emotions
- euphoria is induced by acute doses which implies a different mechanism
What is evidence that cocaine may have other effects (aside from reuptake inhibition of dopamine)?
- dopamine transporter antagonists do not induce the same behavioural effects as cocaine
When is sensitization of cocaine observed?
- with larger euphoria and crashes in heavy users
- more brain excitation
What is CART?
- cocaine and amphetamine regulated transcript
- neuromodulator produced after psychostimulation triggers transcription factors (in midbrain)
- starvation (hypothalamus)
How does CART act as a neuromodulator in the midbrain?
- stored in vesicles with dopamine, increase release
- when alone induces locomotor activity
- when with dopamine prevent increase
How does CART act in the hypothalamus?
- responsible for decrease in eating behaviours (anorectic)
How does cocaine act as an antagonist?
- antagonist to sodium channels
- results in no electric propagation
- anesthesia
What are the short-term effects of cocaine?
- enhanced self-esteem/confidence
- “giddiness”: arousal, motor activation, euphoria
- increased talkativeness
What are the long term affects of cocaine? What are they caused by?
- anxiety/depression: downregulation in limbic system
- motor problems/tremor: downregulation in midbrain
- death from psychosis-related or depression related suicides
- “delay discounting”
What is “delay discounting”?
- outcomes are evaluated differently because of time delay
- “$1 today, $20 in a month” vs “$5 today, $7 at end of month”
- cocaine users will always choose closest option
Does cocaine produce tolerance?
- “acute”: coke-out, freeze and let-down depression
- physiological
What does it mean to “coke-out”?
- subsequent administration does not illicit same effect for 10-12 hours
What does “freeze” mean?
- pyschic numbing followed by exhilaration/well-being
What is “let-down depression”?
- occurs after first dose as a result of coke-out
- emotional uplifting?
What physiological tolerance results from cocaine use?
- slow
- heart-rate and blood pressure
- high incidence of first time over-dosing
