BATH SALTS: The Drug That Never Lets Go
By Jenny Marder
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It's impossible to talk about bath salts without talking about dopamine -- a natural neurotransmitter involved in the basic experience of pleasure. Chocolate, sex, gambling, nicotine, even the buzz of a smartphone in a pocket, all cause a rush of dopamine in the brain's reward center, the nucleus accumbens. Tiny dopamine molecules surge forth from nerve cells in the brain to send a cascade of signals to other nerve cells, and then they retreat back into the cell in a process called reuptake. It's the constant release and retreat of this chemical that causes feelings of pleasure, exhilaration and a sense of well being.
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What they've found is that there seemed to be a time delay built into the drug, so that mephedrone is acting before MDPV, releasing dopamine from the cell before reuptake is blocked. And once MDPV takes hold, it doesn't seem to let go.
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This could explain the strange behavior among abusers of these drugs, De Felice said. In fact, he thinks ingesting bath salts is akin to knocking out the dopamine transporters altogether.
"Eventually the body will replace them, presumably," he said. "But for hours and hours, you've essentially removed the dopamine transporters. So you've really messed up the whole balance of neurotransmitters in the brain."
MUCH more:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/bath-salts/
