– 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

There are actually lots of reasons but I think that one one of the reasons that is most related to what is OP is asking is that nicotinic receptors rapidly desensitize and some internalize. What that means is the acute high levels of nicotine that would be generated by smoking or vaping would cause the actual nicotine receptors to stop functioning for a brief period of time or even to be reabsorbed into the cell such that nicotine has no place to work until these things come back on-line.

Also, nicotine does release dopamine within the ‘reward pathway’ but it doesn’t do it to the same degree along each of the nodes of that pathway.