Drug Affects The Brain

Drugs change the way that neurons talk to each other. These changes cause neurons to make you act in ways that you normally wouldn’t.

There are three main parts of the brain that are affected by drug use:

The basal ganglia

The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that motivates us to do healthy activities, like eating or hanging out with friends. Drugs flow into this area of the brain and cause people to feel really happy. But if you use a drug a lot, the basal ganglia can get used to having the drug around and make it hard to feel pleasure from anything but the drug.

The amygdala

The extended amygdala is what makes you feel stressed out or cranky. When people use drugs, this part of the brain gets very sensitive. When your body is used to the drugs and you stop, the extended amygdala makes you feel really sick, so people will use drugs again just to get rid of that feeling.

The prefrontal cortex

The prefrontal cortex helps you think, make decisions, and control your actions. So when someone uses drugs, this part of the brain becomes less able to make good judgement or step in to say "no" to a harmful impulse.

Also, some drugs affect other parts of the brain, like the brain stem. The brain stem controls heart rate and breathing. When a person takes certain drugs like opioids, their breathing can become dangerously slow. When the breathing stops, it's called an overdose, and can cause death.