Advanced Psychopharmacology

Alcohol Withdrawal Video Transcript

Speaker 1: Alcohol withdrawal is the result of a long-term interaction between alcohol and the central nervous system. Let's zoom in on a very simple circuit. On the left is an excitatory neuron, and on the right is an inhibitory neuron. When the excitatory neuron releases glutamate, this causes sodium and calcium to rush in to the next neuron, and that causes an action potential to fire. When GABA gets released in the inhibitory side of the circuit, that stops the action potential, because chloride rushes into the cell.

Now, alcohol acts just like GABA. Now, if you use alcohol heavily for a long time you develop tolerance. Which means that your brain starts taking those GABA receptors in, leaving your neurons hyper-excitable in the absence of alcohol, which can lead to an excited toxic state of all gas, no brake. Then you HATESINS, hallucinations, agitation, tremor, elevated pulse, sweating, insomnia, nausea and vomiting, and seizures. This can actually be a life-threatening condition.