something, eventually they wind up hooked on something terrible like heroin, the shrt-term effects on that person are what? short-term, you use heroin, dopamine levels increase, that increase in dopamine produces the euphoria that s associated with the drugs. long-term, if you continue to use the drug, the consequences of an increase in brain dopamine are a decrease in cope amin receptors. right. and you know, the image a lot of people have of heroin use is, you know, if you do it once, you ll get hooked forever. is that true? well, there s some evidence that a single dose can get people hooked. that tends to be not the most common approach. right. people don t people get hooked over time. it s not necessarily a single dose. but in some cases it can be. and the reason, after they ve tried it the first time, the first time you do it, what do you feel? so, people report euphoria.
you feel fantastic. you feel fantastic is what people will report, that s correct. okay. that s the first time. you use heroin. then what happens? well, because dopamine levels continue to increase as a consequence of heroin use reception number goes down, what that means in the real world is you need to use more drugs to get the same high. so what you hear is people are chasing that first high, and to do so, you need to increase your dose. and then, eventually, through time, you cook your brain. you lose dopamine receptors, throughout time, i think one of the things we need to lock at, as well is the dopamine story is a compelling one. but, dopamine is linked to other neurotransmitters in the brain and they change, as well. the number one thing you want to make sure people understand and we re trying to get through this week during our series on heroin addiction, is people sim there are a lot of stories, you need education. absolutely. if i could send any message it
any questions? very effective. it has been recognized as one of the top commercials of all time. but all these years later many people still don t realize there is proven research that that story is true. your brain on drugs. today we continue our discussion on addiction in america. we re joined by a man who has committed his life to understanding drug addiction. the director of the laboratory for behavioral and molecular neuroimaging at the institute for medical research. pleasure. thank you very much. so yesterday we had compelling story about a woman whose husband lost his life to heroin. we re going to talk tickly about heroin because it is such first of all how big a problem is heroin becoming in the united states? i ve been talking to kids for decades. and i ve never seen a drug explode on the scene as much as the open yet iates have. i think some of the statistics