Possession of Cocaine

Question by Aleeya S: Serotonin and cocaine?
Cocaine is a reuptake inhibitor but what does the surplus of serotonin do? What is its role in the effects of cocaine?

Best answer:

Answer by gypsykitchenwitch
the surplus of serotonin gives you the elated feeling you have when doing cocaine, which is the positive effect. The Negative effect is that you use up your “pool” of serotonin, which gives you the low sometimes experienced after doing larger amounts of it.

Answer by nyskiermom
Re-uptake inhibitor means the presence of cocaine will inhibit the neuron’s ability to suck up the serotonin that it just released into the synapse. This means that there will, initially at least, be more serotonin at the synaptic junction, it will literally be flooded with serotonin, which is why you get such a sense of euphoria with cocaine.

Eventually you deplete the serotonin stores and you have to use cocaine in order to just have enough serotonin out there so that you feel normal. If you talk to anyone who habitually uses cocaine they’ll tell you they use to feel normal, that after a certain point the ‘high’ isn’t really there anymore, but without the cocaine, there is a very real, horrible ‘low’.

There are a lot of anti-depressants that work on this same principle, of inhibiting the re-uptake of serotonin so that there is more of it available at synaptic junctions in the brain. They’re called SSRI’s or selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Nifty, huh? Cocaine is a very powerful version of an SSRI.

To answer your question, the surplus of serotonin gives you a feeling of euphoria, then your brain rinses it away (since it can’t re-up it) and then without any serotonin you feel not just down or depressed, but REALLY depressed. Gotta have your serotonin to feel normal.

jamey johnson, “they should’ve named you cocaine,” washington county fair, abingdon, va 9/14/10

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