How Do Drugs Affect Teenagers’ Brains?

Teenagers are intrigued by the function of the brain in the use and addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

Hope Trust has regular internships for students. We asked teenagers from some of our client schools and colleges to ask us about drugs and brain health.

Q: What Effects Do Alcohol and Other Drugs Have on a Teen’s Brain Once Inside the Body?

All addictive substances affect the brain’s reward pathway, particularly those that motivate teenagers. Alcohol and other addictive drugs increase the quantity of reward-related molecules in the brain. These substances, for example, flood the brain with a neurotransmitter known as dopamine. This chemical surge can cause euphoria, relaxation, and stress alleviation.

Dopamine is a fascinating chemical. Consider how often you’ve laughed till you sobbed or lost your breath. Dopamine is at work. Even though dopamine causes pleasure, its actual function is not to make people feel good. Its true purpose is to motivate humans to engage in survival-related behaviours like sleeping and eating and to foster pro-social behaviours such as friendship formation.

Addictive chemicals are dangerous because their effects overcome the human brain’s normal and healthy messages. When alcohol and other drugs artificially raise dopamine in the teen brain, the message is sent that “you don’t need food, sleep, or friendships as much as you need alcohol and other drugs.”

The reward pathway’s once-effective survival mechanism is now a broken tool due to repeated drug use, which leads to addiction.

Q: What Effects Do Different Substances Have on the Brain?

Substances are frequently classified as stimulants, depressants, or hallucinogens:

Stimulants

Stimulants excite or hasten the brain’s activities. Stimulants can induce an increase in energy, faster breathing, a faster heart rate, and a rise in body temperature.

Depressants

Depressants delay or hinder the brain and body. Depressants can cause fatigue, slower breathing, a slowed heart rate, and a decreased body temperature.

Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens distort the perception of reality in the brain and body. Using hallucinogens can result in delusional beliefs, odd physical movements, and the perception of unreal sights, sounds, tastes, and sensations.

Q: What Is the Difference Between the Teen and Adult Brains Regarding Alcohol and Other Drug Use?

Neurons, or brain cells, are usually wrapped and protected by a fatty material called myelin. Myelin works as an insulator, allowing brain messages to move from neuron to neuron, cell to cell, much like electricity, via a telephone wire network.

While neurons in an adult brain are adequately myelinated and protected, neurons in an adolescent brain have more “myelination” to go through.

Because teen brains are “in progress” in this sense, teen brain cells send “louder” messages to one another than adult brain cells, much like an identical song is broadcast far less attractively through a cheap speaker than through a highly sophisticated sound system.

Teens feel more powerful pleasure sensations from enjoyable activities than adults due to these more intense, less refined brain transmissions back and forth. They also express negative emotions such as anxiety, tension, and depression more “loudly.” Because negative emotions are deeply felt in teens, they may seek them more intensely than adults.

It also means that when youths participate in dangerous behaviours such as alcohol and other drug usage, the reward pathway of the teen brain is highly susceptible to the effects of the substances.

Q: Which substances have long-term effects, and what are those effects?

Using any addictive chemical can be dangerous and have negative consequences. Long-term impacts are not the only ones! Long-term repercussions occur when substance abuse results in several harmful outcomes for youth.

So, when considering long-term effects, remember that immediate and short-term consequences occur first and can be just as damaging to a teen’s life. It is critical to intervene in adolescent alcohol or drug usage when you identify any risk or effect.

Assume someone suffers from the long-term physiological repercussions of drug or alcohol use. Despite embarrassing experiences, relationship issues, and other health and social implications, the person is likely to have remained with problem usage.

The long-term consequences of alcohol abuse include:

  • Damage to the liver
  • Heart issues
  • Beer belly
  • Physical dependence on alcohol, resulting in other severe health issues

Tobacco usage also has long-term consequences, including:

  • Cancer
  • Emphysema
  • Smoking reduces lung capacity
  • Blackened or yellowed teeth
  • Early wrinkle production

Marijuana

Many students are unaware of marijuana’s long-term consequences, which are the topic of ongoing research in the scientific community.

However, several long-term repercussions of chronic marijuana usage are clear:

  • Impaired problem-solving
  • Arrested emotional development
  • Difficulty with memory recall
  • Disruptive, chronic, and persistent lack of motivation
  • Increased risk of mood disorders (e.g., major depressive disorder)
  • Increased risk of anxiety disorders (e.g., generalised anxiety disorder)

Teens must learn about the immediate, short-term, and long-term repercussions of substance use because of the teen brain’s specific vulnerability to substance use and addiction.

Adolescent Substance Abuse

Adolescence might be difficult, but the teen brain is up to the challenge. A teen’s brain can stretch, adapt, and expand in ways that an adult’s brain cannot.

While teenagers are continually prepared to face the responsibilities of adulthood, taking some risks during this time is natural. However, making too many risky decisions in adolescence may throw the course of healthy brain development off in ways that impose excessive strain.

One such unsafe decision is to use substances in reaction to peer pressure. This type of use makes healthy personality development more difficult. Another dangerous option is alleviating extremely powerful negative emotions by overstimulating a sensitive reward system. This method causes brain damage, predisposes youth to addiction, and complicates healthy fun.

Growing teenagers can significantly benefit from learning to meet difficulties, make good decisions, and have healthy fun. If teenagers take good care of their brains during adolescence, their brains will take care of them for the rest of their lives!

Hope Trust is a pioneer addiction treatment facility with over two decades of experience. The organization also offers therapy for all mental health, relationship and emotional issues.

Click www.hopetrustindia.com for an instant online or in-person appointment with a therapist.