{"id":2418,"date":"2011-10-02T23:03:38","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T23:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2019-07-12T07:48:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T07:48:00","slug":"the-speed-of-coke-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/10\/02\/the-speed-of-coke-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Speed of Coke"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I\u2019m<\/a>\u00a0on a plane with cocaine,
\nAnd yes I\u2019m all\u00a0lit up again<\/a>[I]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The mystery of cocaine.<\/h3>\n

When not applying his exacting mind to the mysteries of tenuous circumstances, the fine detective of\u00a0Baker Street<\/a>\u00a0would dispel the tedium that surrounded him with\u00a0cocaine<\/a>\u00a0injections. Solving crimes and cruising\u00a0coke channels<\/a>\u00a0describe an enviable lifestyle! Both activities would be expected to have sent\u00a0Holmes<\/a>\u00a0into a dopaminergic ecstasy. But whereas the first required sleepless nights of deductions, inductions, and refuted hypotheses, the latter merely involved a short cut of the brain’s\u00a0reward circuitry<\/a>\u00a0and hence a much faster effect. But how fast?<\/p>\n

Cocaine therapy.<\/h3>\n

When not peeling away at the subconscious, the\u00a0brave<\/a>\u00a0Austrian psychoanalyst would sometimes take a stroll down\u00a0cocaine alley<\/a>. As soon as ten second after injection, dopamine could be seen accumulating in the\u00a0Freudian<\/a>\u00a0nucleus accumbens. The\u00a0nucleus accumbens<\/a>\u00a0sits along the\u00a0mesolimbic pathway<\/a>\u00a0in the brain, where it rewards the Id, Ego, and Superego for their good behaviour, making them all feel great and assuring them to continue doing whatever it is that they’re doing.<\/p>\n

The time taken for this effect is dependent on the cocaine crossing the\u00a0blood brain barrier<\/a>, getting to the right parts of the brain, and then acting on dopamine transport. Cocaine blocks the uptake of dopamine back into neurons, leaving the feel-good neurotransmitter to build up in the synaptic clefts. More dopamine in the synapses means more dopaminergic signalling, means more activation of the reward pathway, means more Freud\u00a0bouncing<\/a>\u00a0off the walls.<\/p>\n

Annexing cocaine.<\/h3>\n

Sometime in between dropping out of\u00a0art school<\/a>\u00a0and locking himself in a bunker, fascism’s infamous poster boy took to perking himself up with a fistful of stimulants, including\u00a0cocaine<\/a>. Once\u00a0Hitler<\/a>\u00a0learned just\u00a0how good<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0coke<\/a>\u00a0hit felt, his brain developed a Pavlovian expectation to the drug, so that signalling would begin even before the cocaine had penetrated into the Nazi grey matter.\u00a0This anticipatory euphoria takes less than five seconds, and involves another part of the reward pathway. The\u00a0ventral tegmental area<\/a>\u00a0lights up upon administration, sending dopamine packages to the nucleus accumbens, activating the neurons there.<\/p>\n

The speed of coke.<\/h3>\n

Cocaine euphoria travels by two pathways.<\/p>\n

The first is an\u00a0anticipatory activation of the ventral tegmental area, based on learned expectations. This occurs in less than five seconds, and the neurons there signal down to the nucleus accumbens where dopamine is released and reward experienced.<\/p>\n

The second pathway involves the cocaine itself reaching the nucleus accumbens, and by ten seconds or more\u00a0blocking the uptake of dopamine. Dopamine immediately accumulates in the nucleus accumbens, where the build-up induces continued reward experience.<\/p>\n

Which is to say, whether you’re cornering\u00a0London’s criminals<\/a>, analyzing Vienna’s\u00a0sexually repressed<\/a>, or even committing\u00a0war crimes<\/a>\u00a0across Europe, coke\u00a0gets you there<\/a>\u00a0fast. Where\u00a0there<\/em>\u00a0is, is another question altogether.<\/p>\n

\n

Driving<\/a>\u00a0that train, high on cocaine,
\nCasey Jones<\/a>\u00a0is ready, watch your speed[II]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/div>\n

[I]<\/sup><\/a> Lyrics from ‘Lit Up’ by Buckcherry. For the full lyrics see\u00a0https:\/\/genius.com\/Buckcherry-lit-up-lyrics<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

[II]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Lyrics from ‘Grateful Dead’ by Casey Jones. For full lyrics see\u00a0https:\/\/genius.com\/Grateful-dead-casey-jones-lyrics<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m\u00a0on a plane with cocaine, And yes I\u2019m all\u00a0lit up again[I]. The mystery of cocaine. When not applying his exacting mind to the mysteries of tenuous circumstances, the fine detective of\u00a0Baker Street\u00a0would dispel the tedium that surrounded him with\u00a0cocaine\u00a0injections. Solving crimes and cruising\u00a0coke channels\u00a0describe an enviable lifestyle! Both activities would be expected to have sent\u00a0Holmes\u00a0into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,103,204],"tags":[],"metadata":[171],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-essay","category-everything2","metadata-editors-footnotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":66,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/10\/30\/apologies\/","url_meta":{"origin":2418,"position":0},"title":"Apologies","author":"Pala","date":"October 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In October 2016, Shai opens his eighth\u00a0blog, entitled \u201cA Bashful Hope\u201c and sub-title \u201cDreaming of meaning\u201d. 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