How do bath salts affect the brain

Drugs affect this signaling process. Dopamine is the main neurotransmitter that relates to the brain's reward system — the system that tells us we feel good.

Circuits in the reward system use dopamine to teach the brain to repeat actions we find pleasurable. Drugs take control of this system, releasing large amounts of dopamine — first in response to the drug but later mainly in response to other cues associated with the drug, like when you see people you use drugs with, or plases where you use drugs.

Bath salts are another name for synthetic cathinone. Their exact chemical makeup can vary and is often unknown. These substances are recreational designer drugs that are often abused.

Typically, the substances look like white powder and can have effects similar to amphetamines or possess hallucinogenic qualities. While these substances can have various effects on the human body, the effects of bath salts on the brain are an area of concern for researchers. Although bath salts may be sold legally in stores or readily found on the internet, these substances are anything but safe.

Bath salts create a sense of euphoria with a variety of other short-term side effects. Because they are stimulants, they also alert the central nervous system including the brain and many people struggle to sleep while on this drug. The use of sedatives is often not enough to help. For regular users, the result is sleep deprivation, which can have more negative effects on the brain including the impairment of brain function, poor memory, the presence of hallucinations, brain shrinkage, and the death of brain cells.

Like many other drugs that people abuse, bath salts are addictive. Emergency rooms around the country have reported cases of people taking bath salts who become psychotic, violent and delirious.

These patients also may have a very high body temperature. Some people have died from bath salts use. Baumann notes the data for the year are not yet complete. Baumann also notes government action may be playing an important role in the decrease in bath salts calls.

In the fall of , the Drug Enforcement Administration announced a temporary ban on three synthetic stimulants sold as bath salts—mephedrone, methylone and MDPV. The ban made it illegal to possess and sell these chemicals or the products that contain them.

A troubling trend is the availability of newer, similar compounds that chemists are devising to replace the banned substances, Dr.