We got hormones such as testosterone, which is taken by millions and millions of people. Some take it non-stop and seem to have bigger muscles for their whole lives. However these are muscles. It seems to be quite different when it comes to the mind, most people who are taking mind boosting drugs such as cocaine, ritalin, adderall, amphetamine, etc etc do get some benefits but at the end often seem to be worse off then when they had started (I am very well aware of exceptions). The tolerance effect often develops too quickly and vast doses have to be taken in order just to be as good as you were before you started.

In other words. A high percentage of steroid takers take their stuff nearly for their whole lifetime and they stay big.
A lot of drug users take their stuff for quite a while but they don't seem to get mentally fitter, at least not over the long run.

I am not too into endocrinology but could someone point out some info why hormones seem to have a weaker tolerance effect than neurotransmitters? Why do hormones seem to be beneficial for muscle building for such a long time without loosing their effect such as many drugs. Lets say L-Dopa for parkinson is only effected for a certain amount of time till it has to be combined with MAO B inhibitors which then become ineffective or at least loose their effectiveness once again. Despite having taken so many different drugs to somehow increase your dopamine levels the person is quite likely to still end up dying from parkinson.

In contrast take Muscular dystrophy disease. Many people can stop their disease for ever from progressing further through the intake of hormones mainly testosterone. (once again their are exceptions but I believe to be that those exceptions are far less with hormones then they are with neurotransmitters).

Anyone who got some knowledge about the theme could clarify it a bit to me?

Bump

Steroids are not risk free.

taking steriods reduces the body output of steriods... this can lead to- shrunken testicles, low sperm count, features of the opposite sex, and "roid rages" and other shit. also if you stop taking steriods, then the body may not be able to produce enough of the steriods it naturally produced causing problems also

as for stuff like l-dopa, some receptors become less sensitive. look at type two diabetes, the receptors for insulin become less sensitive. also same thing happens with leptin and obese people

I know that receptors become less sensitive for hormones. But still not to the extend they do with neurotransmitters.

Ofc steroids impose risks but those are far far less then most psychiatric drugs. I am not talking about abuse I am talking about medical use. What I mean here is that a low levels of a certain neurotransmitter such as dopamine, noradrenalin, dopamine or whatever elce is restored to "normal" levels.
When you restore testosterone from low to normal healthy adult levels you are most likely to benefit greatly from in without having serious side effects. It is widely used as a life prolonging therapy, also men with higher testosterone levels live longer despite their more detrimental behavior towards risks, especially including alcohol and cigararete consumption. If you don't believe me there are hell of a lot of studies about this. This testosterone therapy is ofc only good if it is done for a whole life, there is no point in doing it for years and then stoping it leaving your body unable to produce anymore testosterone by itself. The shrunken testicles are treated with hcg which puts them back to normal size.

Now with neurotransmitters, first of all we cannot easily measure them as we can with hormones, many psychiatrist give the wrong neurotransmitters causing even more damage, then many of those neurotransmitters have problems crossing the bloodbrain barrier, others have a far too strong effect. Then you can only guess what amount of a certain drug is needed to make you "normal" you cannot measure it. There are various complications with neurotransmitters and most people starting to take those end up with the wrong ones the first 3-4 times.

This post was edited by MyAccountIsOsterHues on Oct 2 2009 07:27pm

Neurotransmitters have transient effects. They don't usually affect long term changes in brain chemistry or make up.

Hormones, specifically steroids are long term and create a physical change through activation of transcription factors. Steroid hormones affect gene expression in cells, whereas things like cocaine and meth are just agonists for NT receptors.

If you want a more in depth explanation send me a pm and I'll respond sometime tomorrow afterI get some sleep. I think I know enough about hormones and neurotransmitters to explain what you're confused about.

Y I pretty much know that, but my problem is to apply the knowledge about the difference between neurotransmitters and hormones to come to a conclusion why neurotransmitters seem to slightly increase the tolerance effect faster than hormones. I am not sure whether gene expression plays a crucial part here but I think what might play a role in the tolerance effect is that the ones a slow acting and the others are fast acting. This might lead to a more aggressive tolerance effect in neurotransmitters but thats ofc all speculation.

this they arent

Anabolic Steroids are part of your body. It becomes risky when you don"t have enough of them which is a problem a hell of a lot of people have which results in poor health, frequent illnesses, concentration problems, erection problems, no ambition, no motivation and other words you are like an old guy if you haven't got enough. Then people who anturally produce too much testosterone this is a as good as a non-existing problem. Much rarer. Some thing that if you natural levels are quite high you are more likely to get prostate cancer which is wrong. Prostate cancer is more likely to grow with high levels of testosterone ONCE YOU GOT IT ALREADY, but plays no part in producing it.
Thos people who suffer from levels that are too high extremely overuse it. But anabolic steroids is an hormone which is extremely hard to misuse or overuse in comparison to other hormones we have. Now I am not saying it is hard to misuse it, I am saying it is hard to misuse it in comparison to other hormones. Imagine someone frequently injecting such vast amounts of cortosteroids or adrenalin, you would be in deep trouble!

Testosterone is in no respect special. Its like everything elce you got in your body, once you got far too much you got a problem, be it water, red blood cells, white blood cells, adrenalin, serotonin, dopamin or whatever elce. It should be common sense that anything in an overdosis causes side effects no need to constantly pick up on that.