Abstract
Many of the current studies that explore how drugs interfere with our nervous system and our brain. There are experiments that explore the effects of withdrawal from certain illicit drugs and the effects these drugs have on our brain. Though there is plenty of research on how illicit drugs affect our brain, there’s not much research that talks about the permanent effects of drugs on the brain. In order to test the permanent effects of drugs on people, we would have participants, with various experiences with drug usage, test their reaction time, memory, and decision making skills. With this research, we hope to find whether doing illicit drugs can have permanent cognitive effects on people.
Introduction
Literature Review
San Francisco has a major drug issue and according to SF Chief Medical Examiner’s report (pg.7), almost 697 of the deaths in SF are related to drug overdose and it is more than double the amount of deaths caused by the novel COVID-19 virus (SF.gov COVID-19 data and reports), which was 262 deaths. Most of our knowledge on drugs is that drugs impair a lot of our brain functions causing us to react slower and lose control of ourselves when we take it, but not many people know about the long lasting effects that can possibly persist even when we decide to quit drugs.
Currently, there are studies that show drugs can cause new neurons in the brain to form and these new neurons can cause long-term drug addiction that can persist even when we decide to quit (Argilli, 2008). The study explains why quitting drugs can be so challenging and why some people who quit drugs would still go back. These studies show that there are definitely long term effects of drugs that cause drug dependence, but it still remains a question about the exact long-term neurological consequences of drugs.
Multiple other studies also show the effects of withdrawal from different types of drugs ( Pope, Gruber, and Yurgelun-Todd, 2001; Moriyama et al, 2003; Lyvers and Yakimoff, 2003; Kelly et al, 2005; Dalley et al, 2005; Kenney and Gould, 2008). These studies prove that even when we are not doing drugs, the effects of drugs can still persist such as lowered attention span, difficulty in remembering events, and others. Even though it shows us the effects of drugs on people who are trying to rid themselves of drugs, it doesn’t show the effect on people who already have rid themselves of drugs but might still experience bad information retention rate and other effects.
Rationale
Much of the current research focuses on the immediate effects of drugs and what drugs do to your nervous system as well as the neurons in your brain, but few explore the permanent effects of illicit drugs. Current research does a great job at explaining the exact effects on how drugs affect our neural system so we feel a sense of relaxation or energy when we do drugs but we hope to further our understanding on the permanent effects of drugs. This improvement would allow us to understand more on what happens to a person’s brain when they quit and explain whether these effects are irreversible or not.
Objectives
The objective of this research is to find out whether illicit drugs can cause permanent damages to a person’s brain. In this experiment, people who are currently and those who used to do different levels of drugs, such as doing drugs everyday, doing drugs once a month, and those doing drugs only on certain occasions. These people would be asked to do certain tasks and answer questions while having their brain monitored along with getting a CT scan.
Design & Methodology
Duration and Location
The experiment would run for 30 minutes to an hour. The location of this experiment would be in a room where we would be able to ask the participants questions and have them perform tasks.
Subjects
For this experiment, three groups of people: those who have been using illicit drugs or unprescribed medication for a year, those who have quit using illicit drugs or unprescribed medication for one year, and those who have never used illicit drugs or unprescribed medication. In the groups that have used or are still using drugs, we need people who do drugs on special occasions (less than once a week), those who do drugs weekly, those who do drugs daily, and those who do it more than once a day. For each group, in order to provide for a more robust experiment, we hope to get at least 100 participants each. However, some groups may be expected to be less or more; these groupings would be helpful in mapping out the demographic of how many people only use illicit drugs “casually” or “consciously” versus people who are categorized as “addicted.”
Materials
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Driving simulator
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Reaction test (one of the common reaction tests that can be found online)
Procedures
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Surveys
Each participant would be asked to fill in a survey about what type of illicit drugs they do or unprescribed medication they take and whether they feel that the feeling of “happiness and pleasure” they feel when they take drugs are becoming weaker as they take more.
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Activities
Each participant would be asked to go through a driving simulator that will test their split second decisions and they will also do a reaction speed test that can be done online.
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Questions
Each participant would be asked to memorize certain images and be questioned on which images were shown to them. We would then record how many they remember.
Data Analysis
From this experiment, I would record the time they took to react to something, whether or not they passed the driving simulator and what percent of the course they did not pass, and how many questions they got correct and how many they got wrong. From the data gathered from each group and sub-group, I would be able to make a general conclusion as to whether doing illicit drugs and unprescribed medication have any permanent effects on the human brain and whether the frequency people do these drugs have any effect on the brain.
III. Project Management & Budget
Name
Each person will be given 17 dollars for their time and there will be around 300 people, 100 for each group.
Procedure Uses
Cost
$5100
Estimated
Total Cost: $5100
Links with Other Projects
In a study done by the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center from the University of California, San Francisco, they were able to discover that cocaine can create new neurons in our brain that causes us to seek out more cocaine and have trouble stopping (Argilli et al., 2008). Mechanism and time course of cocaine-induced long-term potentiation in the ventral tegmental area. Through this study, they were able to come up with conclusive evidence of new neurons being formed in an organism's brain when they take drugs but it was unable to identify whether people will experience decreased reaction time, worse memory, or other symptoms long after they have quit drugs. In comparison, my proposed experiment would be able to identify whether or not people would experience long lasting effects such as worse memory or other effects but the result is not as conclusive. There would be a lot more factors that need to be accounted for, but the result will give a general idea of the long term effects of drugs.
Anticipated Problems
In this experiment, the possibility of outliers are highly likely, with some people simply having better natural reaction times than others. As such, it is essential for us to have a larger study group. Moreover, daily life circumstances also affect one’s cognitive ability, such as whether someone had used drugs during the last hour or week versus someone who did not sleep well the night before. These factors all play into one’s cognitive ability, so it is essential that we record one’s activities at least a week prior to the experiment in order to strictly rule out any possible other factors.
Expected Outcomes
By the end of the experiment, we would have three bar graphs showing the average amount of time each group took to react, the amount of passes for each group in the driving simulator, and the average score of each group in the questions portion. My hypothesis is that those who are still doing drugs would have the lowest scores in all categories while those who have never touched drugs have the highest score, and those who have quit having scores that are significantly lower than those who have not touched drugs but higher than those still on it.
Bibliography
Argilli E, et al. Mechanism and time course of cocaine-induced long-term potentiation in the ventral tegmental area. Journal of Neuroscience. 2008;28(37):9092–9100.
City of San Francisco. (n.d.). COVID-19 cases and deaths. COVID-19 cases and deaths | San Francisco. https://sf.gov/data/covid-19-cases-and-deaths.
Dalley JW, et al. Cognitive sequelae of intravenous amphetamine self-administration in rats: Evidence for selective effects on attentional performance. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2005;30(3):525–537\
Kelley BJ, et al. Cognitive impairment in acute cocaine withdrawal. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology. 2005;18(2):108–112
Kenney JW, Gould TJ. Modulation of hippocampus-dependent learning and synaptic plasticity by nicotine. Molecular Neurobiology. 2008;38(1):101–121.
Lyvers M, Yakimoff M. Neuropsychological correlates of opioid dependence and withdrawal. Addictive Behaviors. 2003;28(3):605–611.
Moriyama Y, et al. Family history of alcoholism and cognitive recovery in subacute withdrawal. Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience. 2006;60(1):85–89.
Pope HG, Jr, Gruber AJ, Yurgelun-Todd D. Residual neuropsychologic effects of cannabis. Current Psychiatry Reports. 2001;3(6):507–512.
Rodda , L. M. (2021, February 17). Report on Accidental Overdose Deaths. SF.gov. https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/2021%2001_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf.
