Silk Road forums
Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: mito on June 30, 2012, 07:43 pm
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We read so many terms such as dopamine release, serotonin, reuptake, opiod receptors, neurotransmitters, etc. etc.
Sometimes they make no sense to me.
I'd like to know what my brave little brain is up to when I'm under the influence of any given substance.
Thanks.
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Look on amazon for used cognitive neuroscience books. I picked up most of mine for less than 10 dollars and they are only one edition old. Also a lesser known term to search for is physiological psychology that's even more of an intro to the brain on a somewhat more broad and lower level. It might be hard to jump right into a cog nerurosci book. If you really want to know about the chemicals and their effects though your best bet would be psychopharmacology which is the study of drugs on the brain. Also if you go to pubmed you can find a lot of articles free if you have a specific topic you want to know about. For instance how cocaine or amphetamine work and what their differences are you can search and probably find some good intro articles free. You'll probably want to start with a book and then dig into articles for clarification or if you get interested in something, say, synaptic vesicle formation and release and how re-uptake inhibitors effect the synapto-proteins etc.
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If you are looking for basic information, check this one out:
http://www.jellinek.nl/themas/jellineknlbrain
Its compiled by a dutch rehab clinic, but the animations are mostly available in English too.
Obviously they focus on the negative aspects of drug use, but the biochemistry presented is sound science as far as i've looked into it.
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http://www.jellinek.nl/english
nice link, aweseome!
thanks!!!!\
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Don't worry about trying to learn everything, it's not easy. Even though I already have a bachelors in neuroscience (neurobiology) and with just finishing my first year of medical school, I've realized I still have a LOT to learn.
I'm sure there are lots of PDF versions of some basic neurobiology and neurochemistry books.
Here's a link to the amazon page of one of the updated version of one of my favorites, I'm sure there's a PDF version somewhere online to download.
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Neurochemistry-Eighth-Edition-Neurobiology/dp/0123749476/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt
sdesu
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Drugs and the Brain by Solomon H. Snyder
That was my introduction to brain chemistry.