@Major Legend how about when taking them together with memantine? Shouldn't that lower the chance of things going south?
Memantine works by being a partial NMDA competitor , it works by preventing the natural process of over-excitation via CA2+ ion channel, thus preventing tolerance and synaptic plasticity to an extent.
However all these drugs Memantine counters are dopamine releasers not dopamine agonists. The fundamental difference here is things like Adderall forces releases of natural dopamine, as do many other drugs. The body has many mechanisms to recycle dopamine, and has an emphasis of regulating dopamine.
A dopamine agonist is something that can activate dopamine receptors without actually being dopamine, however it is still different from actual dopamine, meaning the body may be worst or unable to recycle such chemicals.
Exposure to constant dopamine causes a bunch of things that lead to damage, as in the case of Methamphetamine the main cause of it being the long half-life of Methamphetamine, which is why you are more likely to see tweaked our anhedonia types with zombie like states in Meth abuse.
Dopamine is the brains natural reward chemical, meaning it is highly stimulatory. In short bursts like caffeine or cocaine the reward is backlashed by a rebound, but for things like dopamine agonists it may very well end up with elevated dopamine activation for long periods of time.
Dopamine activation for long periods of time is likely to cause systemic lengthy downregulation of every pleasure/reward system in your brain. As the entire brain relies on dopamine as a prime motivator to actually do things - you can see why Parkinson drugs should not be messed with, unless you really really have done your research.
Not to mention dopamine agonists are far more specific than dopamine itself, which may cause a bunch of imbalances between the different subtypes of receptors in the brain, causing an imbalance of signalling pathways thus leading to things like being unable to think properly, or having thought gaps.
Following the logic above, once somebody uses Cabergoline there is a chance that the person will always need to take it to keep the above systems running in normal order.
Finally Dopamine has huge implications in things like learning and neural linkage, when u learn things dopamine release causes vasodilation in pathways and also triggers the construction of new neural pathways. So you can see how having these pathways downregulated could ruin anyones life.
Compare that to GABA abuse, GABA downregulation would cause a permanent inability to calm the brain down and clarify neural signalling leading to increased anxiety, at worst seizures, panic attacks, but it will not stop making you feel pleasure - which I imagine is one of the more important parts of being alive.
Edited by Major Legend, 16 May 2016 - 05:23 PM.
