– Nicotine is a tropane alkaloid, it has the ability to release dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain, why does it not produce consistent euphoria like cocaine; alkaloid or speed: amphetamine?

Question

EDIT – Something I forgot to mention which may add context is that after a period of abstinence I feel a sharp euphoric wave of dopamine which goes away within less than a few minutes and results in dysphoria, even with redosing.

Unlike cocaine, which I’m comparing since both are alkaloids, it seems to build a very unusually fast tolerance and any positive effects dissipate, unlike the latter.

In: 3379

Answer 1

An alkaloid is just a chemical class of molecule, generally, we use it to describe natural products (secondary metabolites from plants) which contain a Nitrogen atom. This was done in early chemical studies as it was thought that alkaloids had similar properties and effects, which as we learned more about molecules, we found was quite an oversimplification. Cocaine and nicotine both being alkaloids does not say that they will have similar chemical or pharmacological properties. For example, LSD is also an alkaloid, but has completely different properties in the body. Penicillin antibiotics can also be classified as alkaloids. You see what I mean.

Fundamentally however, nicotine and cocaine have different mechanisms of action in the brain; they both effect the signalling of neurotransmitters, but different neurotransmitters, and at different parts of the brain, in different ways etc. The whole concept that dopamine is the ‘happy’ or ‘addictive’ neurotransmitter is an oversimplification of something that we understand relatively little about to begin with.

There is a specific ‘circuit’ in the brain that is shown to be associated with addiction, of which dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter, but different ‘addictive’ drugs impact this pathway from different parts of the brain, in different ways. We can understand this, but not understand why certain drugs are more/less addictive because of this.

TL;DR. An alkaloid is just a classification of molecule (containing a nitrogen atom). Nicotine and cocaine are different drugs with different actions in different parts of the brain. They also interact with the ‘addiction circuit’ in the brain in different ways.