By David Stephen
There is an information problem within the larger problem of drug addiction. Illegal drug users discuss experiences, feelings and addictions, but what information do drug users have about the mechanisms of mind for those feelings, experiences or addictiveness of the drugs? This guest essay on Irish Tech News looks at the role that AI can play in solving the information problem within the larger drug addiction problem.
NIH Brain Initiative Drugs effect on the mind
People that are chemically dependent or those living with substance use disorder often recount experiences before, during and after using illegal drugs. They sometimes discuss the state of feeling nothing, the state of elation, the calm, and so forth. Some ascribe the continuous use to what the drugs do for them. Some also feel helpless in being addicted, while many experience several negative effects in their social and occupational lives.
When a person takes a drug, what happens? This is not a question about a pathway or one [reward] chemical. This question means how drugs have an effect on the mind. For those that claim that drugs resolve their anxieties, how did the effect happen, even if it may not be true that drugs resolve anxiety? For those who claim that drugs solve their trauma, depression, and so forth, what is happening in the mind that can explain how that may have resulted?
This is where AI agents come in. To discuss, display, explain, present, and express every step process for different drugs [especially stimulants and sedatives] and why they seem to have effects. There is a lot of discussion about the lack of agency or intention against saying no to drug use or its ability to overpower the cautionary ability of the mind. How does this happen, and how can this be rebuilt?
Information is often a deterrent for the mind. Information is also potent to seek alternatives. Information, where robust but simplified, can be useful enough to spur changes in people and society.
AI is already a powerhouse of information across knowledge areas. It also has information on drug biochemistry, but it does not have information on how the human mind works. It is possible to provide this new information in a way that would assist people living with substance use disorder to understand what is happening within, away from the opacity of the present, towards harm reduction and care.
From all the evidence in neuroscience till date, there are two direct candidates, conceptually, for the human mind, electrical and chemical signals of neurons. This means that all functions and their attributes are a result of the electrical and chemical signals.
So, it is possible to explain all drug effects within the mechanisms of the signals. Neurons, for example, are in clusters, according to evidence in neuroscience. It can be theorized that in clusters of neurons, electrical and chemical signals are in sets or in loops, where they interact. Also, in sets, electrical signals often have states with which they interact with chemical signals, which also have states. These [instantaneous] states become the grade or attributes that determine the extents or outcomes of the interactions.
For anything to affect the human mind, it has to have an effect on sets of electrical signals or on sets of chemical signals. This is a basis for which drug use can be explained, with displays of how stimulants work and how sedatives also work.
There are addictions beyond drugs that may include electronic applications, devices and so on. They also would have an effect on sets of electrical and chemical signals. There are situations where the intensity of electrical signals in interactions could be so high, or the volume of chemical signals, or one of the chemical signals in the set is so high that the space that is necessary for intent [to say no or hold], is covered, resulting in helplessness.
There are also states where some of the necessary depletion in some sets of chemical signals do not occur that result in making electrical signals bounce off earlier or faster, or not be allowed to deliver some of what they bear for that set, or pick up what that set has, resulting in some of the experiences of feeling nothing, in some situations. Some chemical effects may also lead to new sequences for electrical signals, making old things feel new.
These can be explained expressively with AI agents, available across devices, shaping the understanding of how drugs work, conceptually, to seek alternatives or note extents of effects. The NIH BRAIN Initiative, has a lot of connectome research that has not solved drug addiction, but it might be possible to explore paths, conceptually on information parity, or close to it, for what is happening within the human mind. Mapping the mind is more important than mapping the brain.
There is a recent story [APRIL 14, 2025] on Science News, Federal cuts put help for mental health and drug addiction in peril, stating that, “People in the United States are in the midst of an ongoing opioid epidemic and a wave of mental health problems. So funding and staff cuts to a federal agency that supports mental health care, suicide prevention, and addiction treatment, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, has worried people who work on substance use disorders and mental health. In 2023, nearly 50 million Americans ages 12 and over were estimated to meet the criteria for a substance use disorder. And about 1 in 4 adults have a mental health disorder in a given year.
Teenagers and young adults in particular are struggling: In 2023, over half of adolescent girls reported long-lasting feelings of sadness and hopelessness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In recent months, SAMHSA workers have been fired, its funding has been put in jeopardy and the agency itself has been rolled into a newly created umbrella entity called the Administration for a Healthy America. ”
David Stephen currently does research in conceptual brain science with focus on the electrical and chemical signals for how they mechanize the human mind with implications for mental health, disorders, neurotechnology, consciousness, learning, artificial intelligence and nurture. He was a visiting scholar in medical entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, IL. He did computer vision research at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona.
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