Ziva Cooper

And this allows, it says, the drugs to attach onto and activate the neurons.

And it says that although these drugs mimic the brain's own chemicals, they don't activate neurons in the same way as a natural neurotransmitter.

And they can lead to some funky, abnormal messages being sent through the network.

And it continues that it was once thought that surges of the neurotransmitter dopamine produced by the drugs directly caused the euphoria.

But scientists now think that dopamine has more to do with getting us to repeat the

pleasurable activities than with producing the pleasure directly.

So you're like, that felt good.

Let's do that again.

you're not alone.

Earthworms, leeches, all kinds of critters have the same endocannabinoid systems, just maybe a little less extensive.

And also they don't have access to dispensaries because weed stores usually don't take cash.

But yeah, according to the 2013 veritable textbook, Smoke Signals, A Social History of Marijuana, Medical, Recreational, and Scientific, we started to discover our own endocannabinoid systems

after first discovering the close to it chemical nature of cannabinoids.

So we noticed it in the plant first and then backtracked and was like, oh, we make these too.

And one of the first endocannabinoids to be identified is called anandamide.

And the name comes from the Sanskrit meaning bliss.

It's called the bliss molecule.

Hell yeah, man.

But for more on molecular neurobiology, we have an episode titled just that with Dr. Brain from CBS, aka Dr. Crystal Dilworth, but onward.

Oh boy, this episode, it's a beast.