Stimulants
Depressants
Weeds & 'Shrooms
Drug Mechanisms & Effects
Final Jeopardy
100
This common stimulant works by blocking adenosine receptors.
What is caffeine?
- Adenosine is a neuromodulator that has been broken down from ATP. Accumulation of adenosine can contribute to the feeling of fatigue and tiredness. Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors in the brain.
100
This is a widely abused legal depressant that affects motor skills, judgment, memory, self‑awareness, and aggression.
What is alcohol?
100
This class of drugs distorts perception by acting on serotonin 5‑HT2A receptors.
What are hallucinogens? Commonly LSD and Mushrooms.
100
This stimulant is often paired with tobacco but can also be delivered via patches, gum, inhalers, and vaporizers.
What is nicotine?
Nicotine stimulates tissue containing melanin.
200
This stimulant has both powder and “crack” forms, the latter containing sodium bicarbonate and typically smoked.
What is cocaine?
200
Alcohol decreases functionality of this glutamate receptor important for learning in the hippocampus and decision making in the pre-frontal cortex.
What is the NMDA receptor?
200
The main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.
What is THC?
- The hippocampus, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and nucleus acumbens all have high levels of cannabinoid (THC) receptors.
200
Heroin binds to these receptors, shutting down inhibitory neurotransmitters and flooding the synapse with dopamine.
What are opiate (endorphin) receptors?
300
This stimulant increases dopamine release, lasts longer than cocaine, and can cause neurotoxic effects.
What is methamphetamine[SB1] (amphetamine)?
300
This condition results from prenatal alcohol exposure, impairing facial and brain development.
What is fetal alcohol syndrome?
300
Long‑term cannabis use may lead to reduced volume in these two brain structures.
What are the hippocampus and amygdala?
300
Synaptic damage during adolescence from alcohol can be long‑term because this developmental process is still occurring until about age 25.
What is synaptic refinement / axon targeting?
400
This drug produces a distortion of time and sensation, endurance, excitement, and feelings of ‘intimacy’ when it blocks the reuptake of serotonin.
What is MDMA (Ecstasy)?
400
This depressant is obtained from the sap of the opium poppy and is chemically related to morphine.
What is heroin?
400
These fungi‑derived hallucinogens affect sensory perception similarly to LSD.
What are psilocybin mushrooms?
400
This E-cigarette or vaping‑related condition is associated with lung injury.
What is EVALI, a e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (CDC, 2020)?
500
Albert Hofmann first tested this drug on “Bicycle Day” in 1943.
What is LSD?