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Health and medicine
Course: Health and medicine > Unit 9
Lesson 6: Drug abuse and drug addictions- Drug abuse and drug addiction
- Overview of psychoactive drugs
- Psychoactive drugs: Depressants and opiates
- Psychoactive drugs: Stimulants
- Psychoactive drugs: Hallucinogens
- Routes of drug entry
- Drug dependence and homeostasis
- Reward pathway in the brain
- Tolerance and withdrawal
- Risk factors for drug use and drug abuse
- Substance use disorders
- The development of substance use - Why do people use legal and illegal substances?
- Why do some people but not others develop substance use problems?
- Treatments and triggers for drug dependence
- How does substance use develop into substance abuse
- Drug use prevention - school programming and protective factors
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Psychoactive drugs: Depressants and opiates
Visit us (http://www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and-medicine) for health and medicine content or (http://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat) for MCAT related content. These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video. Created by Carole Yue.
Want to join the conversation?
- Just to clarify: Barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and opiates all fall under the Depressants categories? Also, confused between drawing a fine line between barbiturates and benzodiazepines.. seems like the same thing. Benzos are just a specific type of barbiturates?(7 votes)
- opiates are not depressants. they are their own category because they affect a different receptor. opiates = endorphin receptors, depressants = GABA receptors
benzos are an example of a barbiturate, and a barbiturate is an example of a depressant. hope that clears things up!(34 votes)
- Weird way to call them depressants when they are prescribed for anxiety...3:02(0 votes)
- Depressants "depress" or in other words lower the body's and brain's activity. Thus they are of use in calming the brain when it is being attacked by anxiety.(14 votes)
- Would melatonin be considered a depressant?(4 votes)
- Yes, and Melatonin is released to control your sleep. So if your melatonin isn't balanced you might have trouble sleeping. That is why some people actually take medicine called "Melatonin" because they have trouble sleeping and they need that extra melatonin.
Hope this helps.(4 votes)
- I was hoping for more details, what synapsis are and more exemples of drogas and stuff but i will watch more videos.(5 votes)
- Just to clarify: Barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and opiates all fall under the Depressants categories? Also, confused between drawing a fine line between barbiturates and benzodiazepines.. seems like the same thing. Benzos are just a specific type of barbiturates?(4 votes)
- where would abilify fit in?(4 votes)
- Abilify is an antipsychotic, which is also known as a neuroleptic or major tranquilizer. Going off of the information saying it's known as a major tranquilizer, it may be classified as a barbiturate- a type of depressant. () Plus, neuroleptics are classified as depressants. 1:56(4 votes)
- # 1: if you took all of the psychoactive drugs all in one go would you die? like if you took Barbiturates with alcohol you'd die but would like carole said pain killers and other medications can be very adicitive so if you took it all the would you be addicted to it or would you die ? # 2 If a patient has a lot lot of stress , pain and anxiety will you have to take opiates? and if you do what would happen if you wouldn't take it?(3 votes)
- #1 Yes, most likely. Either you will experience death, coma, or any highly life threatening situation if you take all psychoactive drugs. Most drug mixing can cause death or serious life threatening situations.
#2 No, there are other psychotic drugs one can take for anxiety, stress, and emotional pain. If you didn't take it, you would continue to have anxiety or stress. If you have been taking a psychotic drug and all-of-a sudden stop, then you could have withdrawals.(4 votes)
- What is GABA? Thank You!(1 vote)
- GABA, or gamma amino butyric acid, is a neurotransmitter that functions in inhibition in the central nervous system and reduces excitation in nerve cells 2:43(4 votes)
- How many types of Psychoactive Drugs?(1 vote)
- you can watch the first video - "Overview of psychoactive drugs"(3 votes)
- Doesn't reaction time increase with depressants?(2 votes)
- These days it seems like Xanax is a popular drug among the rap community, as in it seems that many rappers do it or rap about it. All this made me curious, so I did some research, but I am am still confused as to if it is a short-termed, medium-termed or long termed Benzodiazepine.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- Your consciousness is your awareness of yourself and your environment. Some chemicals known as
psychoactive drugs can alter your consciousness by affecting
your perceptions and moods. There are three main categories
of psychoactive drugs I want to tell you about
in the next few videos: Depressants, stimulants,
and hallucinogens. So let's start with depressants. Depressants are drugs that lower
your body's basic functions and neural activity, for
example, your heart rate, reaction time, processing
speed, that kind of thing. The most popular depressant,
one you might not even think of is a consciousness-altering
drug, is alcohol. Alcohol, like other depressants,
slows neural processing. It slows your sympathetic
nervous system down, which is the system that usually helps you respond to dangerous situations. That just means you think
and act more slowly. Alcohol can also disrupt
your regular sleep cycle, specifically disrupting REM sleep. When you don't get enough
REM sleep, then your ability to form memories and
new synapses is reduced. And because of that,
alcohol can have a negative impact on your memory
and learning processes. And finally, and what you
probably know about alcohol, is that it's a disinhibitor,
meaning it removes your inhibitions, people who've
been drinking are more likely to act on their impulses,
which often leads to impaired judgement and reduced
self-awareness and self-control. That mostly covers what we want
to talk about with alcohol. Another type of depressant
is a barbiturate, which used to be called a
tranquilizer, but that term isn't really used that much anymore. And clinically, barbiturates
are usually used to induce sleep or reduce anxiety,
and they work by depressing your central nervous system activity. Some side effects of
barbiturates are reduced memory, judgement, and concentration,
and when combined with alcohol they can lead to death. As a side note, combining
alcohol with drugs is generally a bad idea,
your body can only handle so many foreign substances
at one time, so take it easy. The most commonly prescribed
suppressant drugs are benzodiazepines which are
sometimes called benzos for short. Benzos, like most other
depressants, enhance your brain's response to GABA, which is an
inhibitory neurotransmitter. Basically how it works
is that benzos open up GABA-activated chloride
channels in your neurons which allows more chloride
ions to enter the neuron and make it more negatively
charged, which then makes it more resistant to excitation. And that's why these drugs
are often prescribed as sleep aids or anti-anxiety medications. There are three types
of benzos: short-acting, intermediate-acting, and long-acting. Short- and intermediate-acting
benzos are usually prescribed for insomnia,
whereas the long-acting benzos are preferred for anxiety. The last type of drug I'll
tell you about in this video is opiates, and opiates are
usually used to treat pain and they can also be
used to treat anxiety. Some examples of opiates you may have heard of are heroin and morphine. The reason opiates are used
to treat pain is because they act at your body's receptor
sites for endorphins, which are your body's
natural pain reducers. This mechanism is actually
what makes opiates a different class of
drugs than depressants. Although these drugs can be
used for some overlapping purposes, such as anxiety
reduction, depressants act on GABA receptors while opiates
act on endorphin receptors. High doses of opiates can
lead to euphoria, which is why people end up taking them recreationally. All these drugs can be very
addictive, so that's why doctors always have to be very careful when they prescribe painkillers,
sleep aids, or any other type of depressant drug or opiate.