How Do Opioids Affect The Brain?
To understand opioid abuse, it’s helpful to understand some fundamentals of how brain cells interact with each other. First, the brain is made up of billions of nerve cells, also known as neurons. Typically, a neuron contains three important parts: a central cell body that directs all activities of the neuron; dendrites, short fibers that receive messages from other neurons and relay them to the cell body; and an axon, a long single fiber that transmits messages from the cell body to the dendrites of other neurons or to body tissues, such as muscles. The communication of a message from the axon of one nerve cell to the dendrites of another is known as neurotransmission. Communication between nerve cells occurs mainly through the release of chemical messengers into the space between an axon and a dendrite; this space is called a synapse. Molecules called neurotransmitters are released from the axon of one neuron to molecules called receptors in the dendrites of another neuron. Opioids,
