On March 27, psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Dewey came into the high schoolers gym classes to speak about different types of addiction and their biological effects on our bodies. Dr. Dewey is employed at the New York University School of Medicine and works with patients of various ages.
The ten year old children that Dr. Dewey works with have developed drug and alcohol addictions by the influence of their parents and siblings. Young children aspiring to be like their parents steal their liquor without the knowledge of its impacts. It is important to acknowledge that addiction can emerge at any stage of life, but the younger you develop an addiction the more susceptible you are to developing other ones in the future. However, Dr. Dewey reminds us that the abuse of alcohol and drugs is not the only kind of addiction that can affect our brains.
Consider your phone, food, and video games, such as Minecraft and Fortnite. These are all factors which increase the amount of dopamine in our brain, allowing us to feel more pleasure and essentially become happier. The increase of dopamine can be observed through a positron emission tomography (PET) scan in which the levels of dopamine is greatly inflated with the use of these types of addictive substances.
Dr. Dewey spoke about monoamine oxidases (MAO), which is an enzyme found in the brain that regulates dopamine. Smoking tobacco or being exposed to secondhand smoke, decreases the amount of MAO present in the brain. The reduction of MAO in the brain increases the amount of dopamine levels; therefore, the people who are breathing in secondhand smoke are more likely to take more risks in regards to trying harmful substances. Luckily, this process is reversible, where MAO will begin to reappear in the brain if you disassociate yourself from the use of any tobacco product and decrease your exposure to secondhand smoke. On the other hand, vapes are the detrimental for the metals found in the vape like nickel, chromium, and cadmium can lead to kidney failure.
Alcohol is the only substance which affects the functioning of the entire brain, whereas drugs impact certain areas of the brain which vary depending on the substance. Drinking alcohol makes the consumer metabolically blunted and will decrease their metabolic rate for seven days.
The students enjoyed Dr. Dewey’s engaging and informative presentation and feel fortunate to have had Dr. Dewey share his research with the high school.
