Gray Matters
An Independent Study Project in Neuroscience for Grades 8-10
Drugs and the Brain
Drug addiction is an illness that can affect people from all walks of life. Addictions can be somewhat mild, like caffeine addiction, but can also be quite severe like heroin addiction. Whatever the substance or behavior may be, the mechanisms of addiction in the brain are similar.
Key Questions:
What neurotransmitters and brain regions do different drugs all seem to influence?
How do the brains of drug addicts look in comparison to brains of non-addicts?
How can drug cravings and drug tolerance be explained in terms of synaptic activity?
Vocabulary Terms:
dopamine receptor inhibitory neurotransmitter synaptic cleft transporter tolerance craving
Mouse Party was designed by the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah. Begin by exploring this introductory page about how Drugs Alter the Brain's Reward Pathway and clicking on the many interactive features. Then it is time for the Mouse Party! Grab the substance abusing mice and drop.them in the chair to learn more about the actions of each drug inside the brain
The National Institute of Health (NIH) is a government agency that provides funding for scientific research. This video series is designed to teach about the fundamentals of drug addiction in the brain. After navigating this series, you may also want to watch these video interviews with drug addicts, their loved ones, and the doctors who treat them.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is a government agency that supports research on drug abuse and treatment. This website is designed specifically to teach teens about how drugs affect the brain, and contains many useful links. Begin by reading this page on how drugs change Critical Parts of Your Brain and then move on to this section on the Brain's Response to Cocaine. There are many other substances discussed on this site, and each includes how these substances change neuronal activity.