Can I bum a neurotransmitter?
By Marie Walden
NOT MY TRIBE - 2/20/2008 12:23PM MDT - 7 Comments
I recently read a mean-spirited and narrow- minded post which blamed chemical imbalances in Hollywood, mental disorders if you prefer, on substance abuse. I agree that there is a strong link between the two; in the case of bipolar disorder, the correlation is astounding–nearly 70% of those afflicted use drugs or alcohol as self-medication. But which came first, the disorder or the substance abuse? The chicken or the egg?
Lots of research shows a connection between bipolar disorder and creativity. Beethoven, Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, even Kurt Cobain, suffered from the condition. Doesn’t it make some sense that, because Hollywood is full of creatives, there might be a greater population of bipolars? That said, the incessant partying and easy access to drugs by Hollywood’s young elites may both trigger the manifestation of bipolar disorder, and then provide some relief from it.
Because bipolar disorder is complicated, let me talk about a simpler and more widespread addiction–nicotine. Not only are the Hollywoods abusers of drugs and alcohol, they smoke like chimneys and slurp energy drinks like camels at a watering hole. Aniston, Pitt, Jolie, Hilton, Richie, Spears, Affleck, Damon, even Julia Roberts, are chain smokers. We know that nicotine is highly addictive. But why? And why is it not true for social smokers, who have a couple cigarettes, maybe even daily, but don’t get addicted? The addictive sorts likely possessed a different brain chemistry from the get-go.
Our brains are a tangled mess of neurons that make connections, fire impulses and respond to neurotransmitters at all times. What we perceive as emotion is largely chemical in nature. Dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and melatonin regulate mood, emotion, concentration and creativity. Dopamine is one of the feel-good neurotransmitters. Certain situations trigger a dopamine response–a belly laugh, a big hug, or great sex to name a few. But because the brain likes to keep itself in a nice steady state, pretty soon the kill-joy neurotransmitter, monoamine oxidase b (MAOb), enters the mix to step on (re-uptake) the happy buzz.
Look at these brain scans. The top scan shows the amount of MAOb in the brain a few seconds after a happy dopamine moment. The brain is positively flooded with this stingy little chemical, racing in to mop up the dopamine and jealously guard it until another thrill wrests it from its greedy grasp.
The bottom scan shows the brain of a smoker in the aftermath of a happy moment. The dopamine lift stretches on and on, like an elastic ribbon of elation, not only allowing the positive feelings to continue, but also allowing the brain greater connectivity, thus, more focus, more creativity, greater sensitivity to the world at hand. To go one step further, if the brain’s steady state is unbalanced to begin with–as in a depressed person who has a paucity of key neurotransmitters–a morning cigarette and cup of caffeine positively impacts brain chemistry, and helps them feel like most of us do naturally.
This is self-medication. And self-medication is often counterintuitive. Do you know what they give hyperactive children to calm them down and help them focus? Speed! Alcohol is a known depressant. But to a depressed person, it has the opposite effect. It elevates mood and improves brain connectivity.
I agree that Big Pharma does not care a whit about Britney Spear’s mental state. Their main goal is profit, and many of the drugs that they push are over-prescribed, too expensive, and downright detrimental. But don’t dismiss the need to balance brain chemistry in the war on substance abuse–caffeine, nicotine, and Red Bull included. Without addressing root causes, it’s a war doomed to continued failure.
Some of the information in this post came from BlaBlaBlawBlawg: A Mysteriously Enchanted Evening with Dopamine-Soaked Truffles.
Tags: Addiction, Bipolar, Britney Spears, DrugsPosted: February 20th, 2008 under Perspective.
Comments: 7
Related articles
link 
Comments
Comment from Tony Logan
(IP: 75.70.79.223)
Time: February 20, 2008, 3:32 pm
I think that all this talk about drug and alcohol use being a form of ‘self medicating’ has a lot of truth to it, but can often be carried a little too far, too. No where is that more true than with talking about people suffering from bipolar disorder, since instead of ‘self-medicating’ many people with this disorder simply lose ability to make good judgments regarding the options around them.
For example, many with bipolar disorder spend a lot when they are hyper. We could call shopping a form of ‘self medication’ for depression, which it is for some people, but in this case it is more like the bipolar person simply loses contact with reality while in ‘hyper-active’ form, losing contact with the sense of reality which is necessary to balance the checkbook and credit cards. He/she is not ‘self medicating’ by shopping wildly, rather he/she is merely just out of control and exercising the poorest of judgments.
As to Hollywood? I’m not so sure that Hollywood actually has more than its fair share of creative people? I rather think that it might actually be the other way around, since this is bureaucratically formed creativity at best.
As a whole, we live in a rather uncreative society, yet more and more of us are becoming more and more imbalanced in multiple ways as our society continues to deteriorate. Too much emphasis is spent on analyzing chemicals and foods as supposed cause to all of this.
Simply put, There are other much larger factors involved than genes, chemicals, hormones, and DNA. We simply do not live in a very well adjusted and emotionally connected society much any more, and all suffer from that whether bipolar or not.
Comment from Marie
(IP: 75.70.36.58)
Time: February 20, 2008, 4:27 pm
Tony, I agree with all you’ve said. I didn’t really want to take on Bipolar Disorder because it is so varied among people–BP I and BP II with sublevels for each. In the manic phase, or even the gentler hypomanic phase, the ability to make sound judgments is compromised, sometimes to a huge degree, sometimes just by being reckless with money or driving too fast or, in Britney’s case, shaving your head in a salon while the paparazzi shoot photos.
As for the ills of society contributing to our disconnectedness, lack of creativity and general malaise–absolutely right.
Comment from thepoetryman
(IP: 72.204.124.92)
Time: February 20, 2008, 11:51 pm
I am bi-polar, but with a twist. I had a major head injury at 21 and now that I’m 44 it is wreaking havoc on my mind. The twist is due to the fact that it is not a chemical imbalance but scarring tissue coupled with the coma causing a huge swathe of my memory to be wiped clean. For twenty years I walked around, god knows where, and recall nearly nothing of the events that were my daily life.
I tried anti-depressants and they made my madness grow exponentially. I have not taken any drugs in years, save for caffeine and nicotine… The problem for me is there is nothing that can “cure” me. I have found that since my mind has wrapped itself around this for the past few years with episodes of depression and rage and utter confusion in between the consciosness of my illness that I am able to control it if I recognize when it is coming. I’m not sure if control is the correct word, since one of the remedies requires me to distance myself from people in general for hours at a time. The episodes have been lessening and I feel better than I have in a long time. I’m not sure, but I have my suspicions, that this may largely be due to abstaining from alcohol, anti-depressants, any pharma drugs, etc…
I hope you do not mind my sharing with you my (head injury) bi-polar story, but it is one that is rarely spoken of or even studied for that matter…
Peace.
Comment from Tony Logan
(IP: 75.70.79.223)
Time: February 21, 2008, 2:26 am
PoetryMan, we wish you the best.
Comment from Marie
(IP: 75.70.36.58)
Time: February 21, 2008, 6:49 pm
My hat’s off to you, PoetryMan, for learning to cope with your debilitating condition. It takes something like ten years for the average bi-polar person to be properly diagnosed. Docs don’t help matters by prescribing anti-depressants for just about everyone and everything. As you found, this is the exact WRONG treatment for bi-polars, and makes the condition much worse very quickly.
Keep living healthy and don’t give up. By the way….I love your blog, love it, love it.
Comment from Major George Hutton
(IP: 69.28.127.2)
Time: May 2, 2008, 1:33 pm
Yo PoetryMan,
Man, sounds like you are where it is at. You deal with it day by day. Hats off to you. Head wound could add to it or cause it or…. Just be proud of yourself, at least you are not a loser, jumping to drugs and alk drinks. May be one day the medical doc’s will find a cure. Keep you in prayer.
George
Comment from Anonymous
(IP: 78.86.159.199)
Time: September 5, 2008, 9:53 pm
Your analysis is semi-flawed. The smokers brain scan easily indicates that the smoker did not have enough dopamine released in the first place after a happy moment, therefore less MAO B was needed to enable its reuptake.
Also your analogy to the chicken or egg situation with regards to the direct correlation of drug use and depression is highly flawed. When someone is born chemically depressed, there is normally a history of depression starting very early on, however, most drug users develop disorders AFTER their abuse episodes, proving that drugs are a direct cause of chemical imbalance in the brain, especially stimulants such as Cocaine, leading to possible depression and other disorders. The brain will recover.
There are thousands of case studies concerning a happy person, using Cocaine, enjoying it’s effects, becoming addict, then developing depression after with no previous history of depression. You cannot argue that he/she only became an addict because he was chemically prone.
Especially with drugs such as Crack, where the likelihood of a person becoming a crack addict after smoking it once is 78%, that is beyond being being chemically prone.
There is something called will power you know, I hope you don’t start thinking human behavior is all chemical; it’s thoughts, perception and situations that INDUCE chemicals in the brain, not the other way around. It’s not chemicals that make you laugh at a joke and become happy, its the joke that induces chemicals that makes you want to laugh and enjoy it. External stimulus, thoughts then chemical. Why alter your self chemically when you can change the stimulus?
Write a comment