EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. (1)

MUHAMMAD AMIR
AHMAS BIN ABDUL
MALEK

EFFECT OF
DRUG ABUSE
ON THE
NERVOUS
SYSTEM.

COLLABORATION WITH
DOCTOR SITI NUR AZLINA
BINTI ZOLKEFLE



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS





First and foremost, praises and thanks to the God, the
Almighty, for His showers of blessings throughout my fourth
coursework assessment of Fundamentals Of Biology 1
(SCES1074) to complete it successfully. I thank God for all the
opportunities, trials and strength that have been showered on
me to finish typing the coursework. I experienced so much
during this process, not only from the academic aspect but also
from the aspect of personality. I would like to express my deep
and sincere gratitude to my lecturer,Madam Ainon Binti Hadim
for giving me the support to do coursework and providing
invaluable guidance throughout this coursework
assessment.Her dynamism, vision, sincerity and motivation
have deeply inspired me. It was a great privilege and honor to
study under his guidance. I am extremely grateful for what she
has offered me as an educator. I am extremely grateful to my
parents for their love, prayers, caring and sacrifices for
educating and preparing me for my future. My Special thanks
goes to my classmates of Science 2 for the keen interest
shown to complete this course work successfully. The big
appreciation to my learning partner Doctor Siti Nur Azlina Binti
Zolkefle Dental Officer At Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Seri Jempol,
Negeri Sembilan because she sharing a lot of her knowledge
as a medical staff about effect of drug abuse to nervous
systems. She very tolerant to help me even she busy with her
work at the clinic. I choose Doctor Siti Nur Azlina Binti Zolkefle
because as a doctor she really proficient in this topic. Finally,
my thanks go to all the people who have supported me to
complete the coursework directly or indirectly. May God shower
the above cited personalities with success and honour in their
life.

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1.0 INTRODUCTION OF DRUG
The purpose of this essay writing is to give an information
about the effect of drug abuse on the nervous system. This
essay writing also want to give an awareness to people out
there how bad the effect of drug abuse to human health and
lifestyle. I want to share first the meaning of drug before we
further our discussion. From the Dictionary of Cambridge drug
is a natural or artificially made substance that is used as a
medicine. Other definition of drug is a medicine or other
substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or
otherwise introduced into the body. Basically drug is a good
thing that help human from any health problem but it become
bad thing when people used it not in proper way. The drug
should be taken in certain doses that are safe for the human
body. Because of our topic is drug abuse so I will introduce
about it. Drug abuse definition is addiction to a drug that lead
to habit that taking illegal amount of drug. When it comes to
drug abuse many bad side affect to your body will occur.
There are many types of drug that smuggled into Malaysia for
example heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and cocaine. A
data from Malaysia health official website the most abused
drug is opium.

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1.2 INTRODUCTION OF NERVOUS SYSTEMS

Now we jump into nervous systems definition. In
biology term nervous systems mean groups of cells
that specialized for conduction electrochemical stimuli
from sensory receptors from a network to the site at
which a respon occurs. Our nervous system is human
body control center. All the activity we do actually
based on our nervous system respon. Our movements,
thoughts and automatic responses are control by our
nervous systems. You can see that how significant the
role of nervous system in our body. Actually nervous
systems also control other human body systems like
digestion systems, respiratory systems and immune
systems. Can you imagine what will happen if our
nervous system damaged by drug abuse? Totally our
body will shut down and we will die.

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2.0 THE SHORT-TERM EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON
BRAIN

As everyone know our brain become the center of the
nervous point. Central nervous system (CNS) is located
directly under the cerebrum and the brain stem also control
basic body function. When someone become drug abuse it
cause they lose their control especially on impulse receive
at their brain part. Chemical substance in drugs give an
impulse that tell the brain that reward itself. This is due to
the intense stimulation of the brain’s reward system. The
brain part that will affect is Limbic System that known as
reward center. It making us feeling pleasure when eating,
get enough sleep and socialize. Our brain will remember
what make you feel happy and encourage you to repeat
doing it. When it comes on this point you will start to addict
with drug because it give you a fake happy feel every time
you take it illegally. My learning partner Doctor Siti Nur
Azlina Binti Zolkefle tell me that physical addiction will
appear when repeated use of a drug stimulate your brain
feeling pleasure that causes physical changes to some
nerve cells (neurons) in your brain. Dopamine will release
by our brain after we consume drug. Dopamine give
stimulates the brain in anticipation of a reward. Also drug
affects the brain neurotransmitters and the release of
dopamine. Other short-term effect to our brain is drug
interfere with brain stem that can lead to irregular heart
rates. Your heart rate can suddenly become slow or maybe
fast without any reason because drug now interfere with
your brain. This short-term affect also can lead to death
case because your get a heart attack.

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2.1 THE LONG-TERM EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON BRAIN
We further our discussion into the long-term effect of drug

abuse on human brain. Actually, long-term effect come when
the short-term continue for a long time. For example, Limbic
System can not accept natural pleasure activities like eating
and playing games. Our body tell brain that the amount of
natural dopamine it not enough to get pleasure. Other than that
our brain is not able to keep up with dopamine production
because it is being depleted quickly each time a person uses.
The result is our brain will naturally responds by slowing
dopamine production because it interprets the heightened
levels during drug use and an excess of it. The long-term affect
that we can feel is that our brain start to numb receptors that
can interpret pleasure signals. This cause the depression on
someone that take drug and it lead to criminal cases such as a
murder case when their drug out of stock and no money to buy
it anymore. In order to achieve enough dopamine in brain they
need to take drug frequently and higher the doses of drug.
Furthermore, the effect that can harm your brain in a long-term
is drug use can change how the different centers in the brain
function. Cognitive abilities can be harmed as the brain tries to
compensate for Drug Abuse Recovery continuing drug use.
Certain stimuli can also become conditioned in the brain,
triggering a desire to take and use drugs. Drug addicts may
even begin to realize that their short-term memory is
deteriorating.

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3.0 THE EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON THE NERVOUS
SYSTEM
Next we continue to other part in our discussion which is the
effect of drug abuse on the nervous system. Drug can affect
and disrupt the natural production of norepinephrine and act
as central nervous system depressants. This affect of drugs
come from opioid type. Opioid types can relief pain
sensations, reduce body temperature and slow heart rate. In
other word opioid also known as painkiller pill. When some
have drug abuse with opioid the effect that they will have is
impulse control disorder. Impulse control disorder we can
refer as the difficulty some people have in stopping
themselves from engaging in certain behaviors. When your
brain as a center of nervous system effected it can cause
impulse control disorder. As I said it may caused by  a
mismatch of the maturation phases in various parts of the
brain that come from effect of drug abuse. Now for other
effect of drug abuse on the nervous system is it will disrupt
the process neurons send, receive and process signals via
neurotransmitters. The task in neurotransmission is to convey
a signal from a sending neuron to a receiving neuron across
an open space known as a synapse. Drugs can mimic natural
neurotransmitters in the body. For example, Marijuana drug
type mimics cannabinoid neurotransmitters, the most
important of which is anandamide.This allows the drugs to
attach to the neurons and activate them.

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Although, these drugs are designed to replicate
the brain's natural chemicals, they do not activate
neurons in the same manner that natural
neurotransmitters do, resulting in abnormal
messages being transmitted through the network.
Other drugs, such as amphetamine or cocaine,
can cause neurons to release excessively large
amounts of natural neurotransmitters or interfere
with transporters, preventing regular recycling of
these brain chemicals. When large amount of
fake neurotransmitters release from drug abuse
activity it absolutely harm our nervous system
cycle. This can lead to many chronic disease
likes stroke, Guillain-Barré syndrome, dizziness
and neuralgia.

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4.0 CONCLUSION FOR MY WRITING

After doing this writing what I can conclude is drug abuse
can effect our nervous system very bad especially on our
brains as center of nervous system. Someone with a
long history of drug abuse will face big problem with their
brain. It took many times to recover from effect of drug
abuse on nervous systems. They need to go for
treatment that which will have a high cost. If someone
that have been involved in drug abuse and want to
comeback as normal person, there are many agency in
Malaysia that can help you. For example in Malaysia we
have PENGASIH Malaysia, National Anti-Drug Agency
Malaysia and Ministry of Health (Malaysia). All the
agency that I mention before provide you’re a treatment
to stop drug abuse. They will help to give counseling
session, detoxification, treatment with medication and
exercise session. From my learning partner Doctor Siti
Nur Azlina Binti Zolkefle detoxification is a withdrawal
therapy also called "detox" is to enable you to stop
taking the addicting drug as quickly and safely as
possible. She added again, for some people outpatient
withdrawal therapy may be a safe option but others may
require hospitalization or therapy in a treatment center. A
new knowledge for me when my learning partner said
that a detox may involve gradually reducing the dose of
the drug or temporarily substituting other substances,
such as methadone, buprenorphine or a combination of
buprenorphine and naloxone.

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To stop drug abuse we need to know first the factor of
drug abuse especially in Malaysia. For young people
peer pressure is strong factor in starting drug. Beside,
taking a highly addictive drug such as cocaine or opioid
painkillers, may result in faster criteria of addiction than
other drugs. We need to avoid young people touch the
drug and being in an unhealthy environment. Remember
still a chance to have a normal life even have been
involved in drug abuse.

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SCAN THE QR CODE TO ACCESS THE EVIDENCE THAT MY
LEARNING PARTNER AND I DO QUESTION AND ANSWER

SESSION.

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REFERENCE

BlueCrest Recovery Center. (2017, October 16). Short & Long
Term Effects of Drug Abuse on the Human Brain. Bluecrest
Recovery Center. https://www.bluecrestrc.com/effects-drugs-
human-brain/

DRUG | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. (n.d.).
Dictionary.cambridge.org.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/drug

Mosel, S. (2019). Brain Damage from Drugs and Alcohol.

American Addiction Centers.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/brain-

damage

Murray, K. (2019). Addiction and the Brain - How Drugs Affect
the Brain. AddictionCenter.
https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/addiction-brain/

National Institute On Drug Abuse. (2020, July). Drugs and the

Brain. Drugabuse.gov.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-

science-addiction/drugs-brain

Sherman, C. (2017, March 9). Impacts of Drugs on

Neurotransmission. Archives.drugabuse.gov.

https://archives.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-

notes/2017/03/impacts-drugs-neurotransmission

Underwood, C. (2020, December 12). 6 Treatments For
Addiction That Are Proven Successful. WebMD.
https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/addiction-treatment-
recovery/successful-treatments-for-addiction

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