Nicotine effects on teh brain

[Roo]

It's a stimulant, just like cocaine. The only difference with nicotine is that it doesn't cloud your judgment to the degree where you think you amazing mind powers are best utilized having three hour long conversations about KRS one in some dingy basement in Portland.

Lmao... Please explain this Bsnatch. The half-Portlander in me is dying to know how you associate and why you can make 1 sentence with the words KRS-ONE, cocaine, and Portland.

On a less interesting note, I understand that nicotine and other stimulants share similar molecular structures and properties but personally I have never drawn that sort of comparison. Nicotine doesn't wake me up or make me more alert. I associate it with calming feelings and a little too much of it makes me sleepy. I guess that its wide range of effects and benefits to different users is what makes it so much more interesting and complex than other drugs or stimulants.

[Liandri]

Because you're addicted to nicotine, anything less will cause you to act cranky, irritable, and lose reasoning/thinking/emotion/ etc. You're just acting normal when you're on the nic. And without it you portray the common side effects of withdrawal.

[visiON]

Because you're addicted to nicotine, anything less will cause you to act cranky, irritable, and lose reasoning/thinking/emotion/ etc. You're just acting normal when you're on the nic. And without it you portray the common side effects of withdrawal.

Umm.. I'm not addicted to nicotine yet, and this is the reason I actually started smoking.

[Liandri]

Congratulations! You're the 1 millionth person to use that excuse!

[tom502]

It inhibits the correct spelling of "the".

[sagedil]

Because you're addicted to nicotine, anything less will cause you to act cranky, irritable, and lose reasoning/thinking/emotion/ etc. You're just acting normal when you're on the nic. And without it you portray the common side effects of withdrawal.

Liandri, have you seen the, what, maybe 30 links I have now posted showing the effectiveness of Nicotine in treating both ADHD and OCD. Have been talking about this now f0r 2 years now.

I don't care about how it affects you, but for SOME people at least, nicotine clearly has positive affects on a person's ability to concentrate, true even if they have never used it.

Don't believe me??? Do a quick Google search on ADHD and nicotine, or OCD and nicotine. Heck, I will even do that for you...


http://health.msn.com/health-topics/...ntid=100144050

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2446482/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2446482/

http://www.trdrp.org/research/PageGr...?grant_id=3960

http://www.uvm.edu/~psych/news/archi...r_nicotine.pdf

http://www.autisable.com/724868119/n...fits-for-adhd/

http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060115/msgs/599969.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15610934

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15011734

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...018ffc27ef7ca0

http://forum.lowcarber.org/archive/i.../t-190877.html


Have I made my point yet????

[deebocools]

Sage just laid down the law.

Besides nicotine having a wide range of effects, we're also talking about that wide range of effects in a wide range of people.

For me? it's pure stimulant. It's a nice happy stimulant, not a jittery one like caffeine. It actually makes me feel most similar to when I used adderal to see what it would be like, of course more mild though.

but I have no history of anxiety, ADHD, OCD or any problems really except being lazy all the time. So of course I'm not going to notice the "relaxing" effects, because I don't need them. I'm going to notice the stimulating ones.

It does what you want it to do, or it doesn't. In which case you didn't keep using it.

[deebocools]

I'd like to add that opinions on nicotine have suffered because of the history of tobacco. discussion of one need not necessitate the other. When you talk about Rx drugs, you're hardly concerned about what crazy ass plant it was discovered in or what lab it was synthesized in. Yet mention nicotine and the uneducated cry "TOBACCO! BAD! RAWR!"

[Snus Hog]

Damn it :

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...mers-risk.html

[sagedil]

I'd like to add that opinions on nicotine have suffered because of the history of tobacco. discussion of one need not necessitate the other. When you talk about Rx drugs, you're hardly concerned about what crazy ass plant it was discovered in or what lab it was synthesized in. Yet mention nicotine and the uneducated cry "TOBACCO! BAD! RAWR!"

Actually, no longer true. YES, was true for a very long time. No reputable scientist would study it as any findings that found any good were just assumed to be cigarette company propaganda. the whole system was broken.

What changed was the grand tobacco settlement a decade ago, that opened the flood gates of scientific research about the effects of nicotine itself. All the studies I pointed to above came after that settlement. In fact, the nicotine and ADHD studies were some of the first ever studies done after the settlement passed.

[PipenSnus]

Nicotine is specifically a cognitive stimulant (i.e., stimulates rational thinking), and it's not only helpful for ADHD and OCD. It's a little-known fact that many gerontologists recommend nicotine patches for their patients with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia related to aging.

I also read somewhere that the idea for Chantix (Champix in the UK) came about because a neuropsychiatrist was trying to figure out why so many of his schizophrenic patients smoked. Turns out they were self-medicating -- nicotine actually helped them think more clearly, and improved their quality of life.

[Ansel]

Not sure if this one was covered in Sage's list above, but i like it :-)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20414766

[Froofather]

Of course Nicotine is a poison. But it actually calms ppl. And you cant say its just the addiction. The addiction is a major part but you also have the calming effects of the nic. I myself am a very nervous person. I have issues with paying attention. My mind jumps from subject to subject and I tend to forget what I was just talking about. When I am talking my mind is thinking way to fast for my mouth to keep up and I tend to mince words. The nicotine calms this alot. I think clearer. I pay more attention during work meeting. I normally cant do puzzles because I am thinking of other things. But when I got a snus in im way more focused. I believe the Nicotine helps me alot. And I am addicted. But I wasnt always addicted. I was like this way before I started dipping and my doctor wanted to put me on medicine to calm my nerves. I refused to take it. It made me feel.. Idk how to explain. Just off. Not like myself. I felt dead inside. Not a good thing for someone who has depression issues. The nicotine keeps me happy I guess. I noticed after I first started dipping that i was calmer. More rational.

So in short. Nicotine effects the brain. There are numerous studies on this. I dont care about the studies. Nicotine has helped me alot. Everyone is entitled to there own judgements and opinions. Im not trying to put anyone out.

[sgreger1]

I am actually in the process of studying the effects of nicotine on neurons currently. Long story short I have a neuroscience experiment going on in my house where I have a stable of exotic cockaroaches and other bugs, and what I do is rip off one of the limbs (don't worry, they grow back), and hook it up to this circuit board I have wired up, and essentially it allows me to intercept and listen in on the sensory data that the specimen's limbs are transmitting to it's brain. I am just essentially converting the electric signals the body uses to talk to the brain into an audio file, allowing me to hear (and see) spikes in neuronal activity, then I can do different shit to the specimens (like inject them with nicotine) to see what effect that has on it's ability to talk to the brain. For example, nicotine speeds things up incase you didn't already know, which is why you think a little clearer after popping in a nice pris. But I plan to actually recreate this in a controlled fashion in my kitchen so I will soon be able to solve the answers to this thread, all I need is to find a cockaroach with ADD and i'll be good to go! lol

[Froofather]

Im willing to volunteer for this experiment. You can cut one of my fingers off. Lol. Im not ready to lose an arm. Or leg for that matter. I wont miss my pinky tho. Or a couple toes.