Curated Paper #2 Drugs and the Brain

Curated Paper #2 Drugs and The Brain

Consciousness and the Human Experience

I spent a couple of years working in memory units of long term care facilities. After years of taking care of individuals who couldn’t express anything to you or remember anything about their life or were constantly tormented with bursts of rage or sadness, I developed a deep appreciation for my healthy brain that allowed me to perceive reality and my place in it. Consciousness and self-awareness is one thing that makes humans very unique. One of the things that makes a human … a human is the ability to achieve a sense of identity and consciousness. When the mind is out of balance the whole body is out of balance, or in other works Ayurveda is impossible to achieve when the mind is severely damaged.


The human experience as we know it depends on our brain’s ability to work correctly. When a brain isn’t functioning properly the human experience can be altered. Drugs can affect an individual’s perception of reality, and so can many neurological disorders. It’s tough to define what normal and healthy brain function is, and I think one good way of approaching understanding what it means to be conscious and healthy is to study examples where consciousness is altered. Here I will demonstrate that by talking about a few diseases of the brain and drugs.

The Brain and Its Ailment

First I would like to discuss two genetic diseases. Genetic diseases can help us better understand the importance and normal function of the affected genes. One very interesting and devastating neurological disease is Huntington’s. I have had one patient with Huntington’s during my time working as a CNA. This individual was in their mid-40s and had very strange mood and character changes. He also had memory problems and made rapid motions with his feet and hands. Huntington’s is autosomal dominant, meaning a parent with Huntington’s will have a 50% chance of passing it on to their child. One of the most devastating parts of this disease is that a person may not express symptoms until they are 30 meaning they could have already had children and not know the risk they would take in passing the disease onto their children. No cure exists for Huntington’s disease and the exact mechanism of the disease is not known. It is hypothesized that an accumulation of a “bad” protein caused by a defect in the responsible gene causes the symptoms of Huntington’s.


Another reason this disease can be so devastating is that a person loses their sense of identity slowly and inevitably. Neurological disorders, I think, are the most dangerous and frightening of all diseases. If one loses their sense of identity and reality, what does one have? Another terrible neurological disorder equally capable of brining distress is Tay- Sachs. This is an extremely rare genetic disease that destroyed the nervous system. The onset of this disease is usually around 6 months of age and its progression usually leads to the death of an individual around the age of 4 years old. The pathophysiology of this disease is based around the absence of an enzyme called hexosaminidase A. The Absence of this enzyme leads to the accumulation of gangliosides in nerve cells. This mutation is caused by a frameshift on the HEXA gene. By studying both Huntingtons and Tay- Sachs we can learn more about what the normal function of the genes responsible for these diseases are.


Genetic diseases are only one type of terrible thing that can alter consciousness. Traumatic brain injuries can also significantly change a person’s perception of reality. Anyone personally affected by a TBI knows how devastating they can be. After a TBI an individual can have a completely altered personality and perception of reality. Growing up one of my best friends had a TBI and more recently my sister’s boyfriend had a TBI. It seems that with TBIs people are more likely to develop negative traits such as aggression, impatience, and vulgarity. This is shown in the literature, but I couldn’t find any explanation as to why this is. By studying TBIs and the changes that occur I think we can gain a deeper understanding of the normal function and also if we were to uncover why people tend to have negative personality changes we could better understand how to treat and heal TBIs.

Drugs and Addiction

Drugs are a part of our daily life and they alter human consciousness on a variety of different levels. Some drugs completely rip consciousness away from us, while others stimulate our minds. From caffeine to prescription medications, the majority of the population interacts with some sort of drug daily. There are countless drugs that have improved the lives of millions of people. Drugs are an amazing resource to humans, but they can also be a detriment to health. In 2018, 67367 Opioid drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States. Maintaining a balance of the healthy use of drugs within the general public is a challenge, but the benefits of drugs greatly outweigh the negative inevitabilities. And in many cases, any alterations to consciousness are worth the benefits of the drug. Such as a drug that may make you slightly anxious but also helps your heart work properly, or drugs that are used in surgery to ensure you feel no pain or discomfort.


Addiction to drugs is a drug-induced disease that alters one’s perception of reality and the ability to think rationally. Anyone who has ever loved a drug addict knows that to comprehend why someone would go to such extreme measures to obtain drugs one must understand addiction is a disease. The pathophysiology of the disease is explained briefly as follows. The drug-induced release of dopamine triggers systematic changes in the communication between reward regions in the brain. Neuroplastic changes occur. Illicit or improper drug use affects the receptors in the brain and the transporters. The physiology of addiction is a fascinating field of study and with more study and knowledge obtained we are better able to treat addiction and to understand the Brain and its normal function, and also what the healthy use of drugs looks like. As terrible as it is, at the end of the day much of what we know about the brain comes from studying diseases and observing what happens in traumatic injuries of the brain.