Not Medical Advice: Oxycodone is a "downer" or depressant that affects the brain's pleasure systems and interferes with the brain's ability to perceive pain.
According to George Mason University, drugs generally fall into three different classifications: Uppers, Downers and All-Arounders.
"Uppers" are stimulants that affect most of the basic processes that happen in your body that keep you alive, like your temperature, heart rate and breathing. They also stimulate the pleasure/reward center in the brain, which often means they have a high potential for addiction and abuse. Uppers are a wide class of drugs and each stimulant that is part of the category has a different intensity.
Like uppers, "downers" also affect most of the basic processes that happen in your body to keep it alive by slowing or inhibiting processes causing users to experience sedation, disinhibition of emotions and impulses, muscle relaxation and drowsiness. Unlike uppers, however, downers take effect through many different processes in the body. Because of this, there are three major classes of downers: opiates/opioids, sedative-hypnotics, and alcohol. Skeletal muscle relaxants, antihistamines, over-the-counter sedatives and lookalike sedatives are also considered downers.
Oxycodone is an opioid pain medication that belongs to the group of drugs called narcotic analgesics. It is used to treat chronic pain. The drug has a high potential for abuse that may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.
Find out more about Oxycodone Uses, Dosage & Side Effects at Drugs.com.