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

• 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 multi-

day 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 diseaseMDMA Structure

ALCOHOL RELATED FACTSDUI STATISTICS

• COLLISION FATALITIES– 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 OFALCOHOL 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 (1999-

2004)

– 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 ASCTheories

• 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 pre-frontal & 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 2003-2006). 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 ?