Classroom B: How's everyone doing
Classroom B: here? Jared and Annie? We're doing okay?
Classroom B: Hmm.
Classroom B: awesome.
Classroom B: Okay. So
Classroom B: for at least a little bit we, we shift years of into this point. We kind of talked about specific cognitive processes generally finding content.
Classroom B: They seem to have some applications that we can.
Classroom B: you know, beneficial ways in the real world. Now this for the next little while we kind of shift a bit to the ways in which different factors influence cognitive processes again, still with a a bite towards practical application. And what for us? It it actual, just daily life.
Classroom B: And the topic we're talking about today is the way that various drugs or substances can potentially influence different cognitive processes.
Classroom B: So I mean, very, very loosely the term drug in this case just refers to any substance that could have any sort of like physiological effect.
Classroom B: but from a cognitive perspective, what we're primarily concerned with is what's known as a psychoactive drug
Classroom B: and the special characteristics of a psychoactive drug. Are
Classroom B: like most basic level the fact that it can have an impact on
Classroom B: expression and influence of different neurotransmitters in the brain.
Classroom B: So it's a very like quick refresher on the basics of neural processing.
Classroom B: When when a neuron fires in response to some sort of stimulus or body, or to do anything at the end of that process. What happens is at the connection point or the synapse between 2 neurons.
Classroom B: The neuron that's firing spills molecules of a specific chemical known as a neuron
Classroom B: neurotransmitter then moves through the synapse to the receptor sites of recycling neuron is going to have various impacts on.
Classroom B: There are different types of neurotransmitters and many different roles. and by and large most psychoactive drugs do something
Classroom B: to either increase or decrease the expression and influence of various arrow correct.
Classroom B: So well, psychoactive drugs are usually at the synapse. Not not all because there's some there. There are some drugs that impact neuro behavior away from the synapse. But by and large psychoactive drugs tend to influence neurotransmitter.
Classroom B: That's an active
Classroom B: and of course, you guys, those neurotransmitters impact influence activity of other neurons that are receiving. Those neurotransmitters have an impact on various aspects of our behavior.
Classroom B: Some psychoactive drugs are pharmaceutical. I think others. They're prescribed to to treat various types of psychiatric orders and issues others are recreational people just use them for fun, or they're often sort of
Classroom B: private feelings that they often produce. And there are many drugs that we use for various social occasions, some of which are totally legal.
Classroom B: And of course, the legality of different zip wire drugs is going to go from country to country, and sometimes within countries as well.
Classroom B: For example, is in the Us. Some States go to this cannabis, some States.
Classroom B: and then others, are more uniformly illegal to believe. Is that
Classroom B: so? The you know.
Classroom B: the first sort of primary focus of our of our time today is to work through some of the concepts and research reporting chapter which focuses away from parts to Google drugs. And Ed folks is much more on sort of post talking
Classroom B: recreational drugs that people use both the illegal and what they call social and illicit. But really it's it's
Classroom B: so.
Classroom B: you know, reading reading through the chapter, the the structure of the chapter is is effectively you know, every section starts by identifying some sort of recreational drug.
Classroom B: Identifying very briefly how it works, how it operates on on the brain
Classroom B: expression neurotransmitters and then talks about some of the research on
Classroom B: how it may or may not lose different types of processes. And of course, what coming to is that?
Classroom B: we'll see. Results are mixed
Classroom B: pretty frequently the research disagrees depending on where to use
Classroom B: I and now but what I don't want to do is stand here and go through caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, coaching, and DNA talk about cognitive influencers. One.
Classroom B: I don't think that would
Classroom B: best way to approach this information. I'd rather make this much more active, like more parts, so that if I shoot myself in the foot by asking to do that at 36 in the morning, but I think we will try.
Classroom B: So what I'd like us to do is as as a group
Classroom B: we have a a fair amount of information to start to organize sort of like you to start to do as a group before I start to jump in is just start to organize the discussion and research on on the various recreational drugs that are outlined in the chapter. And I'll start and we will. I'll get a basic list of them going on just for reference.
Classroom B: Right? That whiteboard's not gonna work. You forgetting about that.
Classroom B: Well, there's a lot going on right now. There we go.
Classroom B: But these are the the 6 drugs that are covered in
Classroom B: the context of fetal products
Classroom B: and they also discuss. They don't illegal drugs cocaine so when, like you do zoom room to start to tackle through the 6 of these drugs. Identifying specifically based on your reading of the chapter. Very briefly, how they, how they operate
Classroom B: in the brain, which neurotransmitters are they influencing, based on those neurotransmitters? What are some of the possible behavioral impacts they might have
Classroom B: and then outlining the various cognitive processes that, they they have been potentially shown to influence and research. And on each of those discussing like, how how strong the evidence like, you know a lot of it. A lot of it is like mixed with some some sex showing benefits, some showing costs, some showing no effect so doing what you can to sort of way and balance the evidence and research
Classroom B: chapter.
Classroom B: and we didn't go ahead.
Classroom B: Try to organize that, too.
Classroom B: a bit more of a structure that will allow us to, you know, maintain that information and and have a bit of a discussion about it.
Classroom B: people in the room. If you want to use the the whiteboard for free, it's relatively straightforward if you want to. If you want more space, if you could just click this arrow here, you can just move things around.
Classroom B: and then you just either go back to a pen if you want to drawing
Classroom B: there any questions about what I'm I'm asking you to do any clarifications.
Classroom B: Okay? And and just because, of course, we're coming from different course backgrounds where, you know.
Classroom B: I'll take in different different types of courses, some just terminology and background information that I want to check on and provide some terminology stuff.
Classroom B: If I, in the context of discussing psychoactive drugs, if I use the terms agonist and antagonist. Does anyone know what those 2 terms
Ashley Wray: is? Agonist? The increased stimulation of a specific hormone and antagonist is blocking that specific hormone?
Classroom B: Super super close. The only word I'm going to change is hormone to neurotoxin.
Ashley Wray: Yeah. So I feel exactly right. So so when a drug is an agonist
Classroom B: it. It increases the expression and impact of of whichever neurotransmitter it influences. If it's an antagonist, it does the opposite. It reduces the expression influence.
Classroom B: So that's important. It's a term that moves pretty throughout the chapter. But awkward. I.
Classroom B: Some discussion of the the basic neuro kind of themselves is likely to be helpful. Let's just sort of brainstorm this as a start. What are some of the common neuro transfers that you're familiar with?
Classroom B: And you know what? What's the neurotransmitter? And what are some of the basic things that is
Annie Lewis: Sarah Taylor.
Classroom B: Yeah, there we go.
Classroom B: And serotonin does a whole heck of what it's implicated in quantitative behaviors of what's usually the most commonly discussed and and artists influence serotonin has.
Annie Lewis: I'd like to press you.
Classroom B: Yeah. And specifically, mood
Classroom B: mood regulation.
Classroom B: Just clarify that terminology a little bit that you're correct, and he's corrected. That serotonin is what we discussed in the contents of things like depression and anxiety, but it's to clarify the terminology serotonin does not cause depression. It's serotonin is important for for positive mood and mood regulation. So it's actually whether they deficit in serotonin. That's often one of the causes of of depression.
Classroom B: What are some others
Ashley Wray: dopamine, dopamine.
Classroom B: And again, most of these will have multiple functions. But what's the sort of primary function of dopamine?
Ashley Wray: Isn't it like the reward? Or like the happy
Ashley Wray: response?
Classroom B: Yeah, reward and reinforcements?
Classroom B: So in the end, the chapter just discusses this briefly in the context of some reasoned size to only discuss this in the context of of alcohol. But this is true of many, many substances. Okay, we have a big list from Jaren. We'll get. We'll get to that in just a second.
Classroom B: So like, but
Classroom B: most of the types of drugs and substances that that tend to have a high prevalence of substance use disorders or addiction one of the major reasons that certain drugs are are likely to be addictive is because of their ability to their their abilities. You act as an aid is for dopamine specifically, in an area called the Newcombins.
Classroom B: And when dopamine is released in that area, because that's sort of that good. But, as Ashley was saying. That's sort of like happy feeling. It's it's a reward and reinforcement
Classroom B: so when, when dopamine is released, whatever cause, it's released, we're much more likely to do that in the future.
Classroom B: So that's that's good. Sometimes. That's like working hard on assignment.
Classroom B: A good grade. It will fix the dopamine. Sometimes it's take heroin. And that's not as good
Classroom B: whoops. Chrome button. Okay.
Classroom B: okay, we have a set of polling from Jaren.
Classroom B: Is that a calling? Is it. Neurotransmitter, that is, is primary function is is motor action. And I'm saying motor action rather than motor control, because it's it's primary function is actually the actual triggering of of muscles. So at the very last stage of of processing required for motor or motor control for actual movement
Classroom B: of the body instead of holding this room, which triggers actual physical. Ha! Muscle action it's also implicated in in a wide variety of cognitive functions.
Classroom B: Jaron also listed Nora. Epinephrine.
Classroom B: So now.
Classroom B: yeah, so go. Just a quick thing from Jaren on on a set of colleen. It's yeah. Jared's actually correct. That increases in a set of colleen are are strongly linked to Alzheimer's disease and other memory deficits. And that's actually the primary reason that we conclude that it has some sort of essential role in memory learning. Just know exactly what that function is.
Classroom B: Jared also mentioned nore epinephrine or nore epinephrine and epinephrine are both chemicals. They're more popular terms are noradrenaline and adrenaline so they are largely responsible for things like physiological arousal and energy. Things like that the drugs that we're talking about today don't really impact that a lot. So we don't need to worry as much about it.
Classroom B: And then the other sort of 2 big ones
Ashley Wray: is Gaba, the final one. Yeah.
Classroom B: yeah, exactly. And we're discussing these together because they kind of they're, in fact, the 2 most common neuro exams that are in the brain and they play sort of like opposite ends of of the same role
Classroom B: perfect.
Classroom B: So all of the other neurotransmitters we've been discussing so far things like serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine they are all quite complicated on a on a narrow chemical level. They do very complicated things and cause complicated chemical reactions in neurons glutamate and gaba are quite a bit simpler glutamate when it connects to a resume neuron has an excitatory function. What that means is it makes the next neuron most likely to fire.
Classroom B: Gaba does the opposite. It plays an inventory role just meaning that it's going to make the next. They're on less likely to fire.
Classroom B: And all these in complex networks interact to perform a wide range of behaviors, all of which can be influenced by psychoactive drugs. Because, again, psychoactive drugs are going to through a variety of mechanisms.
Classroom B: That we we aren't gonna cover in a lot of depth today. If if those mechanisms are something that's interesting to you, then the brain's behavior is a good course.
Classroom B: but they're either going to act as an agonist or
Classroom B: or an antagonist, so they will either increase or decrease the expression of these different neuro transmitters based on whether their antagonist based on which neurotransmitter they're influencing and based on where they are having those influences that's going to cause a sweet
Classroom B: often complex
Classroom B: behavioral and differences.
Classroom B: When those substances are used.
thanks.
Classroom B: questions, thoughts, clarifications before. As a group, you start to dig into some of the details.
Classroom B: Want to use them on screen whiteboard. Or you prefer just to discuss.
Classroom B: Okay, any any objections. Maya's plan to just discuss.
Classroom B: You can just sort of structure things on your own. I do, and like in in all your notes. I do highly recommend trying to organize this into some sort of visually organized structure to to all this information. But yeah, given that you will probably do that in slightly different individual ways that works for me.
Classroom B: I do want to avoid that
Classroom B: silence induced by by the operatism. He's standing here. I'll leave from it back, and we'll see where the organization is going.
Ashley Wray: I'm kind of just going through my notes and highlighting a couple things.
Ashley Wray: are you guys? Okay, if I start
Ashley Wray: okay? So I guess we'll just start at the first one caffeine. It's a psychoactive substance, and it's an antagonist for adenosine.
Ashley Wray: There's contradictory information based on studies. But it's recognized for enhancing cognition, particularly with alertness and processing speed. Improve performance on tasks
Ashley Wray: and reaction times.
Ashley Wray: It can, and it can improve physical endurance and cognitive performance.
Ashley Wray: And
Ashley Wray: that's kind of what I got so far for caffeine. Does anyone want to add any notes?
Annie Lewis: Hmm, that's basically what I reset?
Annie Lewis: I can do alcohol.
Ashley Wray: it's
Annie Lewis: and
Annie Lewis: and having a little bit
Annie Lewis: so city just trying to to
Annie Lewis: alcohol impairment or low doses may improve performance.
Annie Lewis: If I reduce anxiety
Annie Lewis: and
Annie Lewis: can inhabit or inhibit the consolidation families
Annie Lewis: after it's adjusted.
Annie Lewis: I
Annie Lewis: and your screen must be
Annie Lewis: has effects on reaction time.
Annie Lewis: And it it naturally impairs it.
Annie Lewis: Specifically in paramount, is mediated through the central cognitive process rather than process. and Paris, both visual pattern, recognition and visual tension.
Annie Lewis: and I showed this in studies, in driving and alcohol.
Annie Lewis: driving and papers of alcohol and performance.
Annie Lewis: so this time that it well. So this is showing that
Annie Lewis: chronic exposure can have long term effects of memory
Annie Lewis: and its associated deficits or cognitive deficits.
Annie Lewis: and there also damage.
Annie Lewis: It was there. So
Annie Lewis: so generally tends to as a kind of set of platforms effectively to clean complex tasks
Annie Lewis: typically will impair performance like driving
Annie Lewis: can lead to concentration on main skill, comparance to the detriment of secondary ones.
Annie Lewis: Then, actually, there's a conflicting evidence, and a lot of this, too. So for those.
Annie Lewis: his message began in order to find, like concrete.
Annie Lewis: long term efforts on the effects of it.
Annie Lewis: Yes. Do you want anything else to add?
Ashley Wray: Does it say anywhere? I think it does in the chapter about which neurotransmitter is it?
Ashley Wray: Yeah, I was trying to find it. And II couldn't. I was trying to. I'm gonna
Ashley Wray: do a quick keyword search. See if I can find like.
Ashley Wray: I feel like I remember reading what dova mean?
Ashley Wray: Double means and all of them affects all of them. Basically
Ashley Wray: gala glutamate. Hmm.
Ashley Wray: yeah. It affects the action of neurotransmitters. Gavin glutamate
Ashley Wray: in common with other addictive drugs.
Ashley Wray: stimulates the release of dopamine from the nucleus accumbens.
Ashley Wray: Okay.
Ashley Wray: it's gonna write Gaba, gloomy, double mean, drop that down here.
Annie Lewis: Okay.
Ashley Wray: does anyone in the class wanna do the next one or anyone.
Classroom B: Hello.
Ashley Wray: hey! I can hear you. We can hear you. Thanks. Can you hear any?
Ashley Wray: Okay, I'll do nicotine. Okay?
Classroom B: So it's stimulant. It's highly addictive.
Classroom B: The research suggests that nicotine can
Classroom B: have both enhancing and appearing effects on cognition.
Classroom B: It enhances attention, working memory and episodic memory.
Classroom B: but it can also lead to a cognitive decline. In the long term
Classroom B: the neurotransmitter is
Classroom B: as the students
Classroom B: colleen, ascetic colleen.
Classroom B: And it's and then an agonist for that point.
Ashley Wray: agonist, you said.
Classroom B: which one sorry agonist, for
Ashley Wray: I'm just jotting down notes as you're talking
Classroom B: and withdrawal can have negative effects on cognition leading to impairment extension and memory.
Classroom B: Yeah, that's all I have.
Ashley Wray: Thank you.
Ashley Wray: We're just zipping through this.
Ashley Wray: No, not yet.
Classroom B: For now that's okay.
Ashley Wray: The screen like this.
Classroom B: So mine's about xt or mdma.
Classroom B: and it's it's it's an agony for
Classroom B: all the feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine
Classroom B: serotonin and also
Classroom B: nor Epinephrine or nore adrenaline.
Classroom B: It's an agonist for those. Basically, it's a feel-good drug. You feel very ecstatic, very joyful.
Classroom B: pain-free, lively.
Classroom B: It gives you like a boost of energy, and it's associated with like
Classroom B: raving and parties and all that jug
Classroom B: interestingly, actually cause. I did my reading response on this. It started off
Classroom B: being a medication for like psychotherapy
Classroom B: when you're
Classroom B: and pain or bleeding, and was still supposed to be like a helping drug for that. But then they started using it.
Classroom B: or parties, and cognitively
Classroom B: after, like a long period of use it affects mostly are working with me
Classroom B: attention. And yeah.
Classroom B: also needs to move disorders. Because when you've been really high. When you've been used to being high for a very long time. If you go through withdrawal.
Classroom B: you start like fluctuating in between
Classroom B: good and bad.
Classroom B: And yeah.
Classroom B: that's basically it
Ashley Wray: awesome.
Ashley Wray: I wonder if this is like kind of off topic. But I had heard that coca Cola used to actually put cocaine in their beverages.
Ashley Wray: Higher compatriots.
Ashley Wray: Maybe I'll ask.
Ashley Wray: Sorry I had to step away. Did we do the other 2? I think
Ashley Wray: cannabis and cocaine?
Ashley Wray: No.
Ashley Wray: I can dive into cannabis. If you guys are okay with it.
Ashley Wray: Yeah, yeah, that's fine. A
Ashley Wray: 2
Ashley Wray: cannabis impairs attention, impairs attention
Ashley Wray: and
Ashley Wray: heavy users struggle with focusing attention nor
Ashley Wray: ignore cannabis impairs attention with heavy users struggling to focus attention and ignore irrelevant information, being easily distracted.
Ashley Wray: generally impairs motor and cognitive function.
Ashley Wray: but the duration of these effects remains uncertain.
Ashley Wray: and
Ashley Wray: consistently impairs by cat short term memory is consistently impaired by cannabis use, possibly due to CB. One receptors in the brain, especially in the hippocampus.
Ashley Wray: Deficits related to memory and executive functioning may persist after long-term abuse.
Ashley Wray: memory impairments and heavy users for at least 7 days of abstinence.
Ashley Wray: But these deficits can be reversed after a prolonged period.
Ashley Wray: Chronic heavy cannabis use particularly starting early in life, can lead to long-term cognitive deficits, especially in decision making and planning.
Ashley Wray: And I'm just trying to find the neurotransmitter. But I can't. So I'm gonna do another keyword search here.
Ashley Wray: Cannabis triggers, the release of dopamine from the nucleus convins. And this probably accounts for reinforcing nature of cannabis use.
Ashley Wray: I think that's everything. But I'm just doing one last
Ashley Wray: look over here.
Ashley Wray: Yeah, I think that's all I have.
Ashley Wray: Does anyone want to add anything
Ashley Wray: anyone want to do? Cocaine? Am I doing it?
Annie Lewis: And
Annie Lewis: so if you came as a nervous and central nervous system stimulant, that is.
Annie Lewis: extract the chemically from the cocoa plant.
Annie Lewis: itch.
Annie Lewis: it increases availability of low transmitters, dopamine adrenaline and serotonin, mainly bucking the When I mean transporters, this actually increases based on nervous system and auto autonomic nervous system arousal
Annie Lewis: and
it's long term. Effects of cooking. On publishing.
Annie Lewis: conclude that chronic cocaine use is associated with impairment. So attention, working memory recall cognitive flexibility and second motive function
and
Annie Lewis: particularly executive function and decision making, but also memory and language.
Annie Lewis: it can have to fits on
Annie Lewis: as we get unclear on the effects of
Annie Lewis: whether these effects reflect long term neurological damage, chronic use to cocaine and amphetamines associated with deficits in decision making. I kind of said that really, but also preventable cortical damage.
Annie Lewis: And prenatal exposure to cocaine may cause deficits in attention and behavior, but other effects seem to be mediated by the environment
Annie Lewis: and Germany cocaine, the but the effects
Annie Lewis: are a urethra. Feelings, power, increased well-being, self belief, increased energy, endurance. little neutral sleep of food.
Annie Lewis: and can both cocaine amphetamines can cause stimulant cycloses as like a psychotic state similar to schizophrenia. And often some confer experienced audit hallucinations of feeling paranoia.
Annie Lewis: And
Annie Lewis: yeah, I think that's if there's anything to add
Ashley Wray: you said serotonin dopamine, and which other neurotransmitter.
Ashley Wray: Okay, thank you.
Ashley Wray: And it's a
Ashley Wray: An inhibitor of these notes in
Annie Lewis: is is mainly it. Many blocks man transporters. Increases the action in both central nervous system and auto economic system generally. I think it is in a tech and
Annie Lewis: it's not an inhibitor. I think it increases it because it
Annie Lewis: not based on this pattern just in line previously. I'm pretty sure it's
Annie Lewis: increases. That gave me. I'm sorry. Tuning.
Ashley Wray: Okay.
Ashley Wray: thank you.
Classroom B: Sign that we're all the way through or stuck.
Ashley Wray: We got through all 6, and
Ashley Wray: I think we're we're good
Classroom B: cool. So yeah, why don't you start walking me through what you've discussed and what you've what you've come up with so far.
Classroom B: We sort of discuss, you know, one by one doesn't matter which order we go into. Any any of the drugs that you want to start talking about is by.
Ashley Wray: I started with caffeine. So it's like what substance? It's an antagonist for adenosine recognized for enhancing cognition, particularly in alertness and processing speed
Ashley Wray: improve performance on tasks and reaction time caffeine can improve physical endurance and cognitive performance.
Ashley Wray: and that's what I covered their long term withdrawal designs.
Ashley Wray: suggest.
Ashley Wray: I'm just reviewing my notes here.
Classroom B: Yeah. So that's all I have for notes. Okay? And I just for preparation, just keeping track of things. Or are those just your own personal notes.
Ashley Wray: just personal notes. And then I went back to the I would go back to the textbook and keyword search like specific specific neurotransmitters. If I didn't have that information or
Classroom B: and so that's that's what we didn't list, because it's not one of the more common directors. But it is that. That's the primary thing that's fine
Classroom B: so so with that, it seems a chemical
Classroom B: many, most areas of the brain
Classroom B: especially areas that are also high glutamate. So remember, the glutamate is that primary
Classroom B: neurotransmitter in the brain. And what's not described in the textbook is like, they they tend to sort of be a kitchen. They're sort of the same
Classroom B: receptor sites, but they're gonna have opposite effects so they're glutamate. Just go to behind with those receptor sites cause more activity, which is, gonna help us say alerts and active, and things like that.
Classroom B: whereas a dentist can diviable.
Classroom B: which means come in and play more of a role
Classroom B: caffeine has the benefits of
Classroom B: basically blocking adenosine by finding with a receptor sites and stopping them from having that inventory option.
Classroom B: So you is getting you visit quite a few rounded off a few of the basic cognitive
Classroom B: processes that caffeine
Classroom B: at least seems to have influence on. But the final thing you mentioned I think that's something that we can discuss, and I'm interested in your thoughts on
Classroom B: So like, of course, like caffeine, is one of the examples where people are arguing about whether it has a direct effect.
Classroom B: The the chapter applies a variety of methodological issues big there.
Classroom B: wide variety, the amount of caffeine or given in the context of experiment. But one of the biggest ones is this idea of washout period.
Classroom B: So basically, in the reading of the chapter, what is a watch out to be created? Any any experiments that examine
Classroom B: so especially for recreational substances.
Classroom B: thoughts
Classroom B: just to just to push us in that direction. So for now, like, we'll put on our like, our our researcher hats. And like, if you do imagine that your designing an experiment to determine whether caffeine has some impact on some cognitive process. Let's say, processing. So you're going to give people basic attentional tasks and try to determine whether allowing people to have caffeine is going to increase their speed or response time on some sort of attention tasks
Classroom B: as, as a researcher, what would you do like? How would you design that experiment? What are the key things that you need to do
Classroom B: so. Let's let's imagine that, you know the the sort of typical types of attentional tasks that are that are described in the chapter. It'd be something like you might be like shown a a relatively fast sequence of let's say that most of them are letters, but every time a number of years.
Classroom B: So just a very artificial but very standard attentional task that we've done in the laboratory. Your dependent, variable in this State is what you're measuring is response time. How quickly does the person respond to that uncommon stimulus that they're supposed to be looking for
Classroom B: something in the chat?
Classroom B: Okay, you can design a double wide placebo controlled study. Participants are randomly assigned to receive either a caffeine pill or a placebo. Neither participant or the researchers know who receives which until the study concludes.
Classroom B: before administration, baseline, cognitive performance moved physiological measures be recorded. yeah. And then, so yeah, we're going. And then you're going into some pretty specific details there.
Classroom B: But yeah, you have. You have. The jaron has the basic idea.
Classroom B: So this, this is like just the the sort of standard basic experimental design.
Classroom B: So your independent variable is articulating experiment sign. You're going to have 2 groups of people randomly assigned one group is going to ingest caffeine prior to the experiment.
Classroom B: One group is when you need a simo this is one of the primary reasons that caffeine said tablets rather than a coffee or a cup of tea, or something like that. This is much easier to control, much easier to produce
Classroom B: group placebo.
Classroom B: The caf coffee does taste different from caf, dated coffee, so it's not a perfect placebo, and the tablets are very good.
Classroom B: The you know the textbook notes. A simpler problem with alcohol syndrome like it's it's difficult for people like increasing alcohol.
Classroom B: So, but given that we have that option for a caffeine tablet. We randomly assign people again. As as Jaron was saying, nobody knows which group anybody did. The participants don't know. The researchers don't know. That's why you need buy a double client study, and those are all very good things to do.
Classroom B: and then, you know, you'd allow the caffeine fill some time to work, and then you go through the test and you determine whether there's a difference in response time.
Classroom B: Does that make sense in terms of an experimental design.
Classroom B: Okay. there is one problem that needs to be solved, though.
Classroom B: So you are going to randomly assign one group to not ingest caffeine prior to the experiment
Classroom B: who here has had caffeine in the morning.
Classroom B: So if you are assigned to that control group, you're not a very good participant in this control group, are you? Because you? In fact, you're supposed to be in the no caffeine group, but you have.
Classroom B: And this is what this is what I mean by a washout period
Classroom B: where, if you're a participant in this type of drug study, if it's something that's a commonly used drug like caf
Classroom B: alcohol addiction
Classroom B: something where it's expected that a reasonable number of participants will just be using this substance in their daily lives outside of the experiment. They have to abstain from that substance for some period of time.
Classroom B: otherwise they can't. They can't possibly be part of the control group, because it's something great where?
Classroom B: So you usually ask people like, Hey, no, no caffeine
Classroom B: prior to the experiment
Classroom B: comes with its own trick. How long should the washout period be?
Classroom B: And I guess 2 exactly 2 related questions, how long do you think it should be? And how long do you think it typically is in an experiment?
Classroom B: And do you think that's how it should, what it should be, or what it is, or both.
Classroom B: Okay, so by the same 24 h. You are definitely correct in terms of, though how it's typically done, it's typically, actually, it's not even pointing around.
Classroom B: I don't don't consume any caffeine in the morning before the experiment. But you could possibly do 24 h, which is also somewhat common. Now, there's an issue with 24 h. So
Classroom B: so if we're imagining this experimental design. And where we've given some people caffeine have not given other people. Caffeine
Classroom B: abstained from that point 4 h.
Classroom B: What's the problem
Annie Lewis: they came in through?
Classroom B: Yeah. People who are right where we use a caffeine are now in a state of withdrawal. So when, with regular caffeine people, who regularly consume caffeine, and whether you regularly eat some coffee urine
Classroom B: that contains caffeine.
Classroom B: That's something you do regularly. If you suddenly stop doing that, you get withdrawal symptoms
Classroom B: higher, you know very alerts. You have a headache
Classroom B: that people experience anxiety, weakness, not in severe cases some people feel kind of depressed.
Classroom B: So now you imagine you're in your little product, not the controller. Now take the caffeine tablet
Classroom B: suddenly.
Classroom B: You're not in that withdrawal symptom.
Classroom B: But if you are in the control group you're now experiencing withdrawal symptoms. So the big methodological issue that discussed the chapter is there are 2 possibilities, either capping has a direct cognitive benefit that actually that taking capping in and of itself produces cognitive benefits, the things that process
Classroom B: or things like that. Or it's that when you have these people in the control group or break where we consume caffeine and have it.
Classroom B: It's that caffeine is that caffeine in the experiments is alleviating withdrawal symptoms. So it's not that caffeine improves cognitive performance, instead of withdrawal.
Classroom B: increases cognitive performance and the last half cafe it gets rid of that deficit.
Classroom B: and there seems to be some some evidence of this. So some of the research described in that section of the textbook identifies that usually, if you have a really, if you have a much longer watch out.
Classroom B: I felt like awake. The fortunate thing about caffeine is that the withdrawal period is quite short. It would only last about like 3 or 4 days.
Classroom B: So when you have a long week long period right now, if these at the very least, reduced those withdrawal symptoms substantially, you can possibly talk rid of them entirely. Then all of the differences between the experimental control groups start to disappear.
Classroom B: and it becomes much, much more difficult to find benefits to
Classroom B: basic cognitive processes with a longer watch out period which does provide increased objective evidence that it's actually not there.
Classroom B: as in and of itself.
Classroom B: any cognitive benefits is that
Classroom B: withdrawal from caffeine reduces cognitive.
Classroom B: and then therefore consuming caffeine.
Classroom B: Bleeds, those are those.
Classroom B: But even without the evidence is still mixed, some studies still find effects
Classroom B: again, because of these, these, this methodological inconsistency
Classroom B: and disagreement that the the author of this chapter describes.
Classroom B: So I mean
Classroom B: all of that. That was a lot to say that the answer to the question, Does caffeine produce any cognitive benefits mainly.
Classroom B: or research it
Classroom B: kind of one of the them throughout much of the research on any of these substances.
Classroom B: And yeah, as before we wrap up the class, I as we go on.
Classroom B: I
Classroom B: you know, throughout the day we'll also discuss the reasons that's quite problematic. There are good reasons to
Classroom B: have good cognitive research office
Classroom B: for example, policies around whether people are moving about various, what are currently people substances.
Classroom B: We need to know the cognitive effects that they have both in the short period, long term, in order to those decisions effectively. And we just often don't have that search.
Classroom B: We're gonna see that in many cases.
Classroom B: most specifically for the legal drugs, the illegal drugs the the cost benefit. Analysis tends to be the quite a bit more straightforward
Classroom B: little to no benefits, lots of especially long term consequences.
Classroom B: But for now what are. What are some other aspects of of the other drawings that you were discussing?
Classroom B: What are, what are some of the things you you were discussing about alcohol.
So it's specifically focused on cognitive processes. We we don't quite know
Classroom B: without
Classroom B: much like they just comes with a wide range of
Classroom B: or purely physiological
Classroom B: after events and impairments just in general health problems. And then they're talking about stuff. There's always been work. Actually, I think you were unmuting to say something.
Ashley Wray: Yeah. Annie covered alcohol that I jotted down a couple brief notes so I can just read what I jotted down. If that's okay.
Classroom B: Yeah. And then we can give any a chance to fill in if
Classroom B: if any feels like doing so.
Ashley Wray: Okay, sure.
Ashley Wray: So inhibit memories after being, it inhibits memories after being ingested, it has effects on reaction time
Ashley Wray: impairment is mediated through the central
Ashley Wray: cognitive processes. Performance studies found. Chronic exposures have long term memory effects. There's alcohol has
Ashley Wray: creates cognitive deficits and has
Ashley Wray: neural creates neural damage. And it affects Gaba glutamate and dopamine.
Classroom B: Yeah, okay, so Andy, did you have to add to that.
Annie Lewis: My name is kind of messy for this one. II don't know why so. and
Annie Lewis: assigned
Annie Lewis: and
Classroom B: sorry could have
Annie Lewis: okay.
Annie Lewis: so I guess we do well with alcohol performance alcohol performance in terms of reaction time
Annie Lewis: the effects of alcohol reaction. Time has been
Annie Lewis: while research, the impairment is needed through the essential cognitive processes rather than peripheral motor processes, and it also impairs both visual pattern and recognition
Annie Lewis: and visual attention.
Annie Lewis: and they did a study with alcohol and driving.
Annie Lewis: they use blood alcohol concentration and to detect
Annie Lewis: and enforce the purpose. It's next time with that one
Annie Lewis: I'm kind of reading out some textbook now, because then my notes are too messy.
Annie Lewis: So in terms of research on alcohol and driving
Annie Lewis: it struck behaviors at a crucial and vertical controls, such as brake, correction, time, and steering. and these impairments can be seen at a moderate and low doses of alcohol.
Annie Lewis: alcohol concentrations greater than 0 point 0 5 cool, significant, secondary impairment.
Annie Lewis: and it was also increased the likelihood of risks.
Annie Lewis: Of the driver taking risks.
Annie Lewis: And there's attention. So individuals tend to focus on salient comparisons.
Annie Lewis: A
Annie Lewis: yeah. And II guess
Annie Lewis: so. Evidence has indicated that heavy drinkers underestimate expect of their alcohol in due second impairment. Where is it? July's drinkers?
Classroom B: Yeah, okay, yeah, let's let's start to unpack some of that stuff.
Classroom B: yeah, so this is this is an interesting case where I think we can. We can distinguish between a few cognitive influences that are that are fairly well established, either reliable across studies, and then some that are a bit more difficult to interpret it.
Classroom B: And again, this is a very good example of
Classroom B: an area where we need much more research to inform laws policies like that. Because at least it it many cultures, especially Western culture, especially North American culture.
Classroom B: All this something is just a very particular thing. It's just a
Classroom B: very common social activity. even though it is.
Classroom B: There is some evidence of these pre-pandemic that there was a bit of a decline in in alcohol use. There was pretty notable, very reliable
Classroom B: increase in alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic. And then there's possibly a bit of a decline coming out of it.
Classroom B: The even. You might even know that if you were reading through this sort of like recommend
Classroom B: maximum that are aligned in the textbook these are based on on Uk standards. But now relatively updated standards, and especially in North America, the new sort of like public health
Classroom B: recommendations are much lower than they've ever been.
Classroom B: and when I say much lower, I mean, if you compare it to the old standards or the standards that are held back in the textbook what's recommended as the maximum for a day in the old standards. It's what's recommended as a for a week is the standards. So it was a massive
Classroom B: because of the recognition of some of the
Classroom B: ways in which some of the familiarity with with alcohol. Who's health especially.
I think.
Classroom B: from a cognitive perspective, the 2 things
Classroom B: that we can establish. I mean the one thing that we know that alcohol is like
Classroom B: reliably find this in any study.
Classroom B: Assuming alcohol impairs various cognitive processes associated with time.
Classroom B: we get decreased. Response. Time decreased what's called cycle motor actions. So the bill coordinate and perform.
Classroom B: you know, goal-directed movements. We know that decision making becomes riskier.
Classroom B: We know that we have this process. Annie was describing this process of intentional narrowing so we tend to be able to, we tend to lose our ability to focus on multiple things once, which is Annie was articulating is one of the main reasons that alcohol. We look at that new estimate
Classroom B: how well they're driving, because they'll focus on just one or 2 things
Classroom B: as the example of the text gets focusing on the process of steering while ignoring, and the fact that they're not actually paying much attention to what's happening.
Classroom B: And just through, you know, these are always done in simulators. Of course you can do so in a simulator, and it just no matter what every study
Classroom B: at essentially any dose, you're going to find some level of impairment so very well established, short term effects, which is why, of course, it's
Classroom B: illegal to drive while at a certain blood alcohol level. This research also demonstrates that maybe that level should be lower or careful.
Classroom B: The other well established fact moving to something boring for the long-term chronic use is that long-term heavy product use of alcohol
Classroom B: comes with every
Classroom B: it's and it varies in severity ranging from just some sort of like exceeded cognitive decline all the way to what's called Corsica syndrome. Anyone familiar with that that syndrome.
Classroom B: It's it's essentially you can sort of conceptualize it as a as an alcoholic poost.
Classroom B: and so not on temporary works, on the same as a black drinking. Too much alcohol
Classroom B: start to use memory for for a lot of that period of time, whereas cost syndrome anthesia is essentially permanent.
Classroom B: And it's it's actually what's interesting is it's not actually the result of alcohol use per se. It's actually caused by a deficiency in an degree called thi amide
Classroom B: which is often associated with chronic alcohol product. Healthy alcohol users get the majority of their talents from alcohol, which we can say, are
appreciate it.
Classroom B: But essentially what it does is it kills a bunch of neurons in emory areas, such as campus
Classroom B: and when I say amnesia, I need, like true, like both retrograde and a terrible grade so awesome that report loss of the ability for memories.
Classroom B: And, in fact, if you read a study of all in Asia.
Classroom B: You know where they have a critical population of people who can no longer form memories. The majority of those at music will be, of course, a confidence
Classroom B: is the most common cause of of clinical amnesia.
Classroom B: the far, far away
Classroom B: rate. Well, I guess this is like traumatic brain. 3. Most common cause of Polynesia is
Classroom B: or scoffs.
Classroom B: What's debated is there's there's a lot of debate more so around the with the exception of some of the cognitive processes driving
Classroom B: what happens at low and moderate doses? This is this is where a lot of people
Classroom B: sort of debate and potential methodological issues come out. So some studies have shown that for some people low to moderate doses of alcohol can actually improve performance on on various types of tests which seems really bizarre and counterintuitive, because one of the first things you think about with one of the cognitive, consuming alcohol is memory.
Classroom B: Studies have shown that, but some show that at low doses it actually can, potentially, it can sometimes lead to a benefit.
Classroom B: Why?
Classroom B: And after we cover these last last 2 points, and we'll dig it further.
Annie Lewis: Is it? Cause it doesn't make you anxious?
Classroom B: Yeah, exactly. And and he's a hit in the mail, right on the right, on the head. So the the issue here, the bigger issue that we're identifying that makes examining the cognitive effects of various drugs especially something like alcohol is the
Classroom B: the time course and dynamics of how it impacts different areas of the brain at various doses. So you know, actually was identified.
Classroom B: and also influences different parts of the brain. Different doses, different parts of the brain are more or less vulnerable to that. So how tall?
Classroom B: Which means that at different doses you get different behavioral effects. And as any is identifying one of the one of the first things that happens at low doses is has an anxiety reduction effect.
Classroom B: One of the primary reasons that a lot of people consume alcohol. Okay? Socially anxious people will have a drink or avoid it to a social situation.
Classroom B: Now, people who have high levels of performance, anxiety
Classroom B: at a low dose will, because of that reduction in anxiety potentially perform better physical anxiety negatively impacts your performance.
Classroom B: So again, another methodological achievement.
Classroom B: And then the other, like
Classroom B: other debate. And and really, it's like conflict in in results from different studies. Some studies have demonstrated that low to moderate use of alcohol over time. So again, this is this is excluding chronic heavy use some studies have, suggested that it actually might be a protective factor, not a risk factor, a protective factor against various forms of dementia.
Classroom B: And what a protective factor means is that if somebody regularly consumes low to moderate doses of of alcohol, it actually might make them less likely to develop and develop develop dementia in the future.
Classroom B: Now, some studies show this, some studies don't and this is one of the other major issues with just broadly, research on the especially the long term effects of drugs and substances is that they are
Classroom B: by their nature constrained to be correlational.
Classroom B: You can do experiments short term experiments where you can for a very short period of time control somebody so recreational substances can't do that for a variety of ethical and methodological reasons. For the peer the course of somebody's life.
Classroom B: you know. Obviously it would not be ethical to randomly assign somebody to a condition where they finished drinking.
Classroom B: So it makes it difficult, because when something's correlational like this, they're like
Classroom B: hundreds of other factors that are going to be systematically correlated with alcohol use, or the use of any drug.
Classroom B: People who drink regularly are going to differ in many ways from don't.
Classroom B: So anytime you find a either predictive factor or risk factor in the long term might be due to the variable that you're examining, or it might be due to those other 100 things.
Classroom B: So the 2 questions are, does low to moderate use of alcohol, offer protective factor against dementia? Maybe
Classroom B: we don't fully know. And if it does, is it actually alcohol? Or is it something else that's correlated to it?
Classroom B: We'll see. We'll take a break in a moment. But we can, we can start to see where the one of the complexity in in a lot of this research ends up happening.
Classroom B: And even you know, this is not. This is like given, notwithstanding the the complexities of the actual biochemistry which makes things complicated as well.
Classroom B: You know it's like. In on one hand, we have alcohol, which is is a depressant overall forwards neuro activity it has, at least in the short term, and the long term with heavy product use seems to have neurotoxic effects, especially in areas associated with memory. But then.
Classroom B: then the biological question that needs to be answered is unraveling. The mystery of how could it possibly, then have benefits at low doses?
Classroom B: And then, you know, and then we'll come back. We'll talk about nicotine, which, for all biological and biochemical logic should probably be a protective factor in event given that we know that a set of holy receptors are important in in
Classroom B: cognitive aging. But we find that your risk factor or dimension so many, many mysteries, many, many.
Classroom B: is 10 to 10 by my watch. Let's take 15. Come back at 5 after, and then we'll open to our discussion.
Classroom B: So just before I forget
Classroom B: notice that the
Classroom B: populating sure everybody will figure it out. is there? That's in case there is any confusion. They
Classroom B: got my name wrong. So you already were looking for weird history of just having trouble with my name, for something
Classroom B: occurred at the launch. That was that was the name that was on my door.
Classroom B: I mean what I started
Classroom B: happened, and it's
Classroom B: sometimes on committee list. For some reason I get listed as Evan Craig.
Classroom B: and I don't really know where that's coming from. Right.
Classroom B: I guess the person doing that
Classroom B: doing the schedule showing. So anything that's correct.
Classroom B: Okay.
Classroom B: so I think we we covered the the full range. But anything else anybody wanted to talk about or identify about the cognitive influences of alcohol.
Classroom B: Okay, so what were what were some of your thoughts and discussion on nicotine?
Classroom B: I got another
Classroom B: declining, but still still common. commonly used substance, and and especially with the
Classroom B: you know, populate growing popularity of cigarettes and things like that. You know, there, there's been a little bit of a slight and that kind of decline
Classroom B: But where did the possession go?
Ashley Wray: I can do the same thing, and just read the notes that I quickly jotted down from Maya's.
Ashley Wray: You probably weren't able to hear at all.
Ashley Wray: Sorry
Classroom B: it's a yeah. It's a problem with with these single location microphones. You have to project a little bit.
Classroom B: Okay, nothing about that.
Classroom B: Yeah. Okay, some of the basic things there. So we have. Yeah, today it is for a settled week. a pet
Classroom B: very, very specifically what are going into that receptors.
Classroom B: because everyone because of the way that they find with them. There are different types of genetic coin receptors as well.
Classroom B: And the the negotiating receptors are the ones that are specifically associated with with cognitive performance that. This. This makes sense. For example, the the types ofoli receptors that trigger.
Classroom B: Yeah. So at at least to a wide range of potential cognitive benefits, at least short term attention processing.
Classroom B: I
Classroom B: some some potential memory benefits, but as I identify it in long-term, and
Classroom B: I don't know risk factor or things like dementia and and Alzheimer's disease.
Classroom B: Now. I guess before I before I go on it. anybody else wanted to add.
Classroom B: I mean, I just have, and that's all. That's all very, very accurate information. And I said sort of 2 other things to add.
Classroom B: for the next discussion so similar to cap mean we have that issue with nicotine,
Classroom B: have a great deal of difficulty quitting, and that's because, unlike half the withdrawal period is very long.
Classroom B: Here's some people quit smoking for well, over a decade. It's still is very cravings. And the individual system.
Classroom B: It's one of one of the primary reasons. That is one of the most difficult substances for being able to quit.
Classroom B: which, from a methodological standpoint, really makes it difficult to determine whether there's any direct benefit, or whether this is
Classroom B: like a withdrawal alleviation thing, especially because people who don't smoke
Classroom B: or or don't regularly. I
Classroom B: it doesn't necessarily begin with, with, sort of having like positive present
Classroom B: influences. So you get this sort of like double like double where it's like there's really no
Classroom B: appropriate washout period for people who do regularly. Everyone fully get to that point.
Classroom B: For all. You're not even really going to get down to a sensible reduction unless you somehow convince participants to obtain from using dignity for months.
Classroom B: which I mean, people tried to do that for much more serious motivation than participating in a research center, right? So we know that that smoking tobacco very large sets of
Classroom B: I
Classroom B: physical, what health measurements people know that still are very find it very difficult, very unlikely, to get somebody to
Classroom B: stop using nicotine for months at a time, so they can participate in research.
Classroom B: Then the other side of that is that the people who don't smoke nicotine are going to react to nicotine in the context of that experiment in different and somewhat unpredictable ways. So a big research on the impact of Amini, who's very chat
Classroom B: and then the other. The other point is, it's, you know, of course, worth noting that even if there are potential cognitive benefits, even even if those were long term benefits, it would.
Classroom B: I would say, surely be outweighed by the
Classroom B: negative impact on general physical health
Classroom B: lots questions.
Classroom B: hey, dad?
Classroom B: And then the the other drugs that we can, we can discuss. We have the depending on where you are either legal or illegal substance of cannabis, and then we have the
Classroom B: kind of uniformly illegal substances of of things like cocaine and
Classroom B: other other stimulants. And
Classroom B: so what do we talk about next?
Classroom B: Why don't we? Yeah, why don't we? Talk about booking an Mba. First, because this is going to be a case where
Classroom B: a lot of the research is, is fairly uniform and and a fair amount of agreement for this, and and it also introduces sort of a challenge of studying the effects of of illicit drugs. Because again, you have ethical and legal constraints where you typically not give information to bring people into a Labrador
Classroom B: illegal drugs. I then examined that other parts
Classroom B: so that makes it very difficult to research the short term. Or what about the acute effects of illegal drugs. Because in order to do that most directly, you have to give people participants for drugs
Classroom B: which isn't going to apply
Classroom B: how we can do. And this is really discussing the textbook. And I think for for good reason, for taking this from practical standpoint. Is, you can do this type of research on the huge effects of of different illegal substances on
Classroom B: to get rats or things like that.
terms of issues of generalizability.
Classroom B: But it is one way to at least start to examine
Classroom B: potential.
Classroom B: You know, behavioral changes, potential
Classroom B: neurochemical changes.
Classroom B: I have a colleague that Uw, no longer does this research because kind of the reduced Federal funding pretty substantially in the last decade. But she used to have a rat lab, and so there used to be a lot of cocaine.
Classroom B: the site department of the University of Winnipeg
Classroom B: for the purpose of Rest.
Classroom B: But that makes it. It makes it challenging. So typically what we, what we tend to research is instead the long term, the cognitive cost effectiveness
Classroom B: of people who, regularly use them often develop substance, use disorders associated with these illegal drugs. Again, they come with those issues that would be correlational.
Classroom B: that there are many other factors, and we'll see some clear examples of this.
Classroom B: But for either cocaine or Mdme. What are some of the longer consequences
Ashley Wray: they can lead to mood disorders.
Classroom B: Yeah. And are you talking about both, or or one in particular.
Ashley Wray: ecstasy, and MDMA. In particular. But I guess
Ashley Wray: cocaine there's chronic use as well.
Classroom B: Yeah, I mean, no, but you, you are correct to focus on on on Mp.
Classroom B: that and yeah, absolutely. It's one that's not really a cognitive impact. But it is something it is still worth discussing, because it is primary medical concern with.
Classroom B: so, mdma, the reason that it's it's such a concern for for disorders is that it's like an extraordinarily powerful serotonin.
Classroom B: And that's
Classroom B: why it tends to. You know what's primary behavioral effect tends to be euphoria. A very just positive present move.
Classroom B: That's because, like when you, when someone takes
Classroom B: spiking the the expression and release of extremely large amounts of serotonin.
Classroom B: Now, the concern with that in the long term. Is that what's what's commonly experienced is that well, we have a couple things, and this this also produces some technological
Classroom B: correlational issues as well Mdma use is most commonly associated with User festival that I clubs rates things like that. Which means that when people use, mdma, it's most commonly most common for people to go on like a 2 to 3 meeting frequently through, or a fairly exempted time.
Classroom B: What a lot of people experience. As a result, after that that binge are often very serious withdrawal symptoms cause you've been, you know, you've been spiking serotonin, and then over the next few days. You're not getting that level of serotonin. So
Classroom B: so people often
Classroom B: experience, pretty severe symptoms of of depression sometimes like suicidalization in the days following binge.
Classroom B: The other concern, I think the one that apple is probably identifying, based on reading the textbook is that there also seems to be that long-term risk factor, because when you have
Classroom B: a substance that stimulates a particular neurotransmitter that substantially.
Classroom B: What you're risking is something called a cytotoxic sound. F. What that means is that when you
Classroom B: over excite an an individual neuron, when it's firing again and again and again and again. That can potentially lead to that neuron just dying out
Classroom B: in in a lot of animal research where you try to knock out specific causes of neurons. That's actually, what researchers do
Classroom B: they? They inject chemicals that overexcite clusters of neurons to kill them off?
Classroom B: So the risk is that long term Mdma uses associated with neurotoxicity for serotonin cells long term. Suddenly you are producing a decline in the sort of available stores of serotonin, right?
Classroom B: As serotonin is so important for positive mood and mood regulation and lead to things like major depression. suicidal migration, suicidal texts.
Classroom B: So it's it's like the primary concern with walking it.
Classroom B: Yeah, some of the cognitive factors. It also seems sort of impair things like like memory what's called central executive function. So central, executive functioning as a concept, making the cross road every other building, like, you know, properly cognitive sources and different tasks.
Classroom B: So so people chronic idea agencies will often have problems with certain.
Classroom B: You know, planning and things like that. It doesn't seem to impact sort of what are called low level processes like protection and attention.
Classroom B: But again, the final thing is with that methodological issue and the fact that and Mdma is often associated with very involved binges. It's the correlational issue is that there are many other differences between chronic and things. There isn't.
Classroom B: but apparently that they don't have healthy sleep schedules.
Classroom B: If the the context for use is often, you know, often involves like standing out essentially all night, sometimes for days at a time. That would be expected to do a lot of these content as well.
Classroom B: Because we know that not having a proper sleep not at proper sleep
Classroom B: are the couple
Classroom B: survive
Classroom B: product? Okay? To use all those I've discussed in the textbook has a similar problem. It's not quite a severe, because it's usually not like a multi pay
Classroom B: kind of thing. But I mean product. Okay, news also has the same issue that when somebody do it they're likely not going to sleep on early.
Classroom B: very powerful stimulants.
Classroom B: Then, moving back, I'm I'm particularly interested in some of the conversation around cannabis use. Of course that's the that's the tricky one was illegal is now illegal.
Classroom B: What were some thoughts. What was some discussion?
Ashley Wray: Think I covered cannabis?
Ashley Wray: So I'll just go over my notes here. They're messy, so I'm kind of summarizing as I go. Thc. Of the primary active ingredients.
Ashley Wray: smoking is the most effective method which leads to rapid absorption and immediate effects due to high bioavailability.
Ashley Wray: The human body has natural receptors for cannabinoids. The CB. One receptors located in the central nervous system, and CB. 2 receptors are found in the immune system cells.
Ashley Wray: Medicinal cannabis has been shown to be effective in managing chronic pain
Ashley Wray: conditions like multiple sclerosis, although it provides it can provide palliative rather than curative relief.
Classroom B: just to confirm whether people
Classroom B: know what what that distinction means. Tiger versus Kerrio
Ashley Wray: palliative is just using like
Ashley Wray: the pain. It's not
Ashley Wray: It's not helping fix anything. Such a poor definition. But
Ashley Wray: cannabis impairs attention. have a user struggle to focus
Ashley Wray: and they have trouble ignoring irrelevant information. So are easily distracted.
Ashley Wray: And
Classroom B: yeah, so I mean, yeah, interesting areas where
Classroom B: relatively limited and somewhat contradictory research. I suspect that's at least in in Canada. That's that's changing pretty rapidly, because again, it's it's much easier to study now, because it's legal
Classroom B: and and so it's interesting reading. This attribute of Jeffers kind of from a Dpa perspective. Where the
Classroom B: not legal. So there's it's not really sort of prevalent within the
Classroom B: within within that specific culture, even things like smoking is the most common form of digestion, while it's still true. It's not at all reason in Canada and and some States in the Us. Are legal. It's certainly not the the massive majority that it used to be, and I suspect that people have concerns about some of the
Classroom B: negative health risks
Classroom B: and just the the wide variety of methods of ingestion that are maybe available, or by the fact that it's legal, regulated.
Classroom B: And there's another dozens of ways for people to use cannabis. And there's sort of this like potential shift away from
Classroom B: smoking hasn't something like credible things.
Classroom B: Now, what actually is identifying as some of the concerns for cognitive performance? Acute things in the short term. Yeah, knowing issues with with attention as actually identifying memory issues specifically things like short term memory which could potentially also be intentional thing problems with what's called perspective memory, which we discussed before remembering to do something and those are all just as somebody has tested cannabis, or often
Classroom B: often sort of observable effects.
Classroom B: Long term consequences
Classroom B: controversial inconsistent across research studies.
Classroom B: One of the biggest concerns in research right now that I owe some
Classroom B: other classes, or it how that varies the same age. So that's one of the biggest policy technical debates, you know.
Classroom B: based on the relatively advanced development of, say, front cortex areas,
Classroom B: adolescents to potentially become your adults shouldn't use cannabis. Then it would have less of a negative impact as people get older.
Classroom B: And again, even the research on that is contradictory.
Classroom B: Any thoughts questions.
Classroom B: Yeah. So Jeremy's asking about this. Yeah, this is another wrench that adds complexity that we haven't really even discussed.
Classroom B: There's so there's like, there's physiological dependency on one drug, which is cost
Classroom B: well, 2 things. It's it's caused by the fact that they release dopamine, which means that they are naturally reinforcing which more likely to do it again in the future.
Classroom B: And then, because of that twin phenomenon of tolerance, draw because withdrawal symptoms are typically.
Classroom B: wasn't.
Classroom B: It's using the substance. Again, it's created withdrawal symptoms. It's also reinforcing. So that's what we sort of mean like physiological dependency substance to taking it in order to to get those those withdrawal symptoms. And then there's like the idea of like emotional dependency or psychological dependency.
Classroom B: And that's that's really more along the lines of like.
Classroom B: have it for me.
Classroom B: It's one. It's one of the reasons that like nicotine is one of the best examples of this. There is a bunch of stuff associated with, say, the action of smoking a cigarette that people, you know, associate with the positive effects that they experience of of actually ingesting nicotine, which is one of the primary reasons that it's it's very easy to provide people with nicotine, without cigarettes or patches there's got.
Classroom B: They don't work as well because of all those habitual psychological factors
Classroom B: that people associate through continued use with
Classroom B: substitutes don't work as well. They don't work as well as you would expect, simply based on.
Classroom B: say, tolerance of withdrawal.
Classroom B: Cannabis does have some of those degrees of of negative reinforcement, you know.
Classroom B: for many people have, like those same kinds of anxiety reduction effects. So if something is naturally anxious, they might occur into something like alcohol or cannabis to
Classroom B: produce those ipod feelings.
Classroom B: Yeah, so these are more, you know, talking about the the biological and psychological reason for somebody might develop a dependency or develop open
Classroom B: proper clinical terms be known as a substance disorder.
Classroom B: Of course we barely scratch the surface here, right? I mean, we've just talked about a few common drugs and substances that people use. And of course, that's that.
Classroom B: even what's common depending on the particular social kind of context that the author of the chapter is coming from. This is comment from a perspective. And we don't talk about things that are major social concern, saying
Classroom B: here, such as
Classroom B: better need to pick up that
Classroom B: as an area of research that's that's often difficult to conduct, and one of the like. Major themes, we can likely get out of this chapter is that there's way too much about all of this that we just don't know.
Classroom B: or at least we don't know if we're disagreeing with the debate. These are things that we really do need to know.
That's
Classroom B: even even outside of just like policy and law and things like that like, there's a
Classroom B: and it was a
Classroom B: there's. There's something critically important about giving people the necessary information. They need to make informed decisions decide whether they want to use various substances.
Classroom B: I think in fairness to us, as you know, autonomous, you know, decision making people with some degree of agency we didn't
Classroom B: know, or in order to make new positions.
Classroom B: One more thing I want us to do. But before we move into that any questions thoughts.
Classroom B: yep.
we're talking.
Classroom B: Yeah, it's a good question. So this is it's an interesting sort of a mission in in the chapters they identify as a
Classroom B: active, free needed. But that's definitely outdated at this point. So it's it's now fairly well established that Phd, still important like it has a variety of effects on on dial cred.
Classroom B: The neurophysiology of this is still fairly poorly understood. It's one of those those bio reactions
Classroom B: complicated.
Classroom B: So II mentioned sort of very influence neurotransmitters at the level synapse and cannabis does to some extent. But it also has a bunch of other complicated biological influences. For example, it. It also influences something called auto receptors where a neuron needs with itself to regulate neurotransmitter release.
Classroom B: Don't worry about the details of that. But just to demonstrate that even the bio physiology in the biochemistry and all those kind of physics is very complicated. And what's ignored in the textbook is that CD, and the needle was also
Classroom B: very active ingredients in text.
Classroom B: So when.
Classroom B: like I'm on, it's an insightful question to ask like is it? Are these cognitive effects because of that one ingredient or one versus the other? That's a question that hasn't really been explored in most of this research, because the research is just. Here's cannabis.
Classroom B: Let's see the effects without much mind to determine
Classroom B: relative concentrations or let alone
Classroom B: controlling relative concentration.
Classroom B: But now that we understand more and more about how cannabis includes brain as we move closer and closer to that understanding that we have better methods, control
Classroom B: factors. So we don't really know the answer to a lot of those. But yet but there's definitely a lot of recent research.
Classroom B: Yeah, this is one of those.
Classroom B: This is another one of those at a present point where
Classroom B: the the understanding of the
Classroom B: the ways of these these various substances influence us again, needs needs to be better informed and and cannabis especially, because it's of course, you know there are 4 and more people Canada, are
Classroom B: are we? Or at least openly interested in cannabis. And that's another issue with some of the statistics on drugs that are reported
Classroom B: basic sort of like, since we assume as a basic lesson that when you're looking at statistics for drug use, they're always on their residence
Classroom B: because you have genetic characters.
Classroom B: substances, or why? And not say on a survey.
Classroom B: So it was a couple of
Classroom B: Yup. But so you you get a lot of as a result of that growing area. You get a lot of misunderstandings and and misinformation. Talk about, for example, if you talk to any firmly, listen.
Classroom B: There's been so much extensive crossbreeding that there is absolutely no biological wages to.
Classroom B: They've been cross bred for decades at this point. So there's
Classroom B: there's no distinction. What you should do is look at chemical relative chemical composition like
Classroom B: like that.
Classroom B: Now, Google reacts differently. We do have different strains. Yes.
Classroom B: based on largely. That's one of the other major methodological issues. And that's my good solid placebos which can be very difficult for some of these sites
Classroom B: relatively easy. If you can get something in a tablet form
Classroom B: more difficult for something like alcohol
Classroom B: deal with the business I read right now. There's a very rapidly growing, a
Classroom B: desire for it, and popularity of sort of like non alcoholic substitutes.
Classroom B: Various things of that still want something comparable, but don't want alcohol and still like. It's very difficult for people manufacturing to make them as close as possible.
Classroom B: Even people who don't really consume alcohol as much, very reliably tell the difference
Classroom B: all that to say that, and emphasize that what we need
Classroom B: better research and better education on this. It's not for a lack of trying. It's difficult.
Classroom B: Thank you.
Classroom B: So the the last thing I want to do and I'm not gonna force anyone to this beyond sort of a volunteer basis. But like the the reading response for this week ask you to sort of go beyond the chapter into a bit of brief research, not like comprehensive literature, but just a bit of brief research. Because this
Classroom B: chapter focuses exclusively on recreational drugs. And
Classroom B: there's also an entire passive, pharmaceutical drugs that are often psychoactive, that change the way that things happen in the brain.
Classroom B: So the you know, the
Classroom B: response Prom was asking you to pick one
Classroom B: and just do a bit of research on sort of what it does. What are some of the potential cognitive
Classroom B: either benefits or costs.
Classroom B: And for anyone who wants to volunteer, I'm just interested in hearing. What discovered.
Classroom B: Chris. If if said, you are feeling like the term fatigue. that impression a little bit which is understandable things that happens if you're feeling some end of term fatigue, it would rather just early for the day.
Classroom B: Everyone's faces brighten up much more in response to that. So why don't we?
Classroom B: I'm of course, gonna read through android evaluations. II recognize I'm behind. I haven't done the I haven't looked at or provided feedback on the response from last week at all.
Classroom B: Do that.
Classroom B: The only final thing I want to
Classroom B: discuss
Classroom B: very, very briefly is so
Classroom B: gone through a couple of those sort of like 1 min deeper exercises like just trying this out end recommendation for the academic. Is this something we want to do? One more time, or
Classroom B: I think it's beneficial.
Classroom B: not really doing much for us.
Classroom B: You have those analogy. I mean, I can send out emails. And so what's it? 7.
Classroom B: Some information about that
Classroom B: surviving
Classroom B: at least
Classroom B: cats on the screen at the moment. They seem to be doing fine.
Classroom B: to be a to be a pet, where your your greatest concern is when somebody serves you your next meal
Classroom B: for things.
Classroom B: Okay, let's let's let's call it.
Classroom B: Let's just call it early today.
Classroom B: Morning.