What Part of the Brain Gets Addicted to Drugs?

Question by Rach™: What part of the brain gets addicted to drugs?
Im talking about meth, cocaine drugs! Like what part what’s it called?
its for a 5 paragraph essay.

Best answer:

Answer by ?Thank you God for everything?
The same part as being addicted to love! no really, look it up!
The part where you feel the rushes and the release of dopamine.

Learn something new everyday! =)

Answer by david
Its called the Mesolimbic pathway (or reward pathway). It’s primary neurotransmitter is called dopamine. It is responsible for the feelings of pleasure and reward when you perform a necessary life process (eating, drinking, sex), or complete a goal (getting an ‘A’ on this essay).

Dopamine’s sole function is addiction. Your brain releases dopamine when you eat food, for example, because it wants you to be addicted to food (it knows you need food to live, so being addicted to it ensures you’ll eat a lot). Same goes for sleeping, drinking, retaining body heat, and sex: your brain wants you to do these things as often as possible. This means that every time you feel good about something, that’s your brain trying to get you addicted.

The better an activity makes you feel, the more dopamine is being released, and the more addicting it is, (which is why most people would choose sex before food). And drugs (especially meth and cocaine) release A LOT of dopamine.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/mouse.html
This will help you understand how specific drugs work in the brain.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/reward/
go through the slides in the middle of the page if you want a complete description of the reward pathway.

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