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April 20 - July 16, 2023
someone who could be a welcome part of every day. He considered himself a romantic, even if
From that, a new hypothesis arose: dopamine activity is not a marker of pleasure. It is a reaction to the unexpected—to possibility and anticipation.
Dopamine has a very specific job: maximizing resources that will be available to us in the future; the pursuit of better things.
From dopamine’s point of view, having things is uninteresting. It’s only getting things that matters. If you live under a bridge, dopamine makes you want a tent. If you live in a tent, dopamine makes you want a house. If you live in the most expensive mansion in the world, dopamine makes you want a castle on the moon. Dopamine has no standard for good, and seeks no finish line. The dopamine circuits in the brain can be stimulated only by the possibility of whatever is shiny and new, never mind how perfect things are at the moment.
Dopamine isn’t the pleasure molecule, after all. It’s the anticipation molecule. To enjoy the things we have, as opposed to the things that are only possible, our brains must transition from future-oriented dopamine
have heard of the H&Ns. They include serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins (your brain’s version of morphine), and a class of chemicals called endocannabinoids (your brain’s version of marijuana). As
path that leads to companionate love. Just as dopamine is the molecule of obsessive yearning, the chemicals most associated with long-term relationships are oxytocin
and vasopressin. Oxytocin is more active in women and vasopressin in men.
first sexual intercourse. Most couples have sex less frequently as obsessive dopaminergic love evolves into companionate H&N love. This makes sense, since oxytocin and vasopressin suppress the release of testosterone. In a similar way, testosterone suppresses the release of oxytocin and vasopressin, which helps explain why men with naturally high quantities of testosterone in their blood are less likely to marry. Similarly, single men have more
Passion deferred is passion sustained. If mom wants her daughter to get married, amplifying the passion is a good way to help things along. Dopamine tends to shut down once fantasy becomes reality, and dopamine is the driving chemical of romantic love.
Dopamine responded not to reward, but to reward prediction error: the actual reward minus the expected reward. That’s why falling in love doesn’t last forever. When we fall in love, we look to a future made perfect by the presence of our beloved. It’s a future built on a fevered imagination that falls to pieces when reality reasserts itself twelve to eighteen months later. Then what? In many cases it’s over. The relationship comes to an end, and the search for a dopaminergic thrill begins all over again. Alternatively, the passionate love can be transformed into something more enduring. It can
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It may even make us happy to suffer pain, if we’re doing it for a worthy cause.
Wanting, or desire, flows from an evolutionarily old part of the brain deep inside the skull called the ventral tegmental area. It is rich in dopamine; in fact, it is one of the two main dopamine-producing regions. Like most brain cells, the cells that grow there have long tails that wind through the brain until they reach a place called the nucleus accumbens.
The sensation of wanting is not a choice you make. It is a reaction to the things you encounter.
Dopamine circuits don’t process experience in the real world, only imaginary future possibilities. For many people it’s a letdown. They’re so attached to dopaminergic stimulation that they flee the present and take refuge in the comfortable world of their own imagination. “What will we do tomorrow?” they ask themselves as they chew their food, oblivious to the fact that they’re not even noticing this meal they had so eagerly anticipated.
To travel hopefully is better than to arrive is the motto of the dopamine enthusiast.
The future isn’t real. It’s made up of a bundle of possibilities that exist only in our minds. Those possibilities tend to be idealized—we us...
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The transition from excitement to enjoyment can be challenging. Think of buyer’s remorse, the sense of regret that occurs after making a big purchase. Traditionally it has been attributed to
the fear of having made the wrong choice, guilt over extravagance, or a suspicion of having been too influenced by the seller. In fact, it’s an example of the desire circuit breaking its promise. It
Buyer’s remorse is the failure of the H&N experience to compensate for the loss of dopaminergic arousal. If
amazing the next time you go out. Thus we see three possible solutions to buyer’s remorse: (1) chase the dopamine high by buying more, (2) avoid the dopamine crash by buying less, or (3) strengthen the ability to transition from dopamine desire to H&N liking. In no case, though, is there any guarantee that the things we so desperately want will be things that we will enjoy having. Wanting and liking are produced by two different systems in the brain, so we often don’t like the things we want.
DESIRE IS PERSISTENT, BUT HAPPINESS IS FLEETING
“life’s intense pleasures are less frequent and less sustained than intense desire.”
On the other hand, in some situations marijuana suppresses dopamine, mimicking what H&N molecules tend to do. In that case, activities that would typically be associated with wanting and motivation, such as going to work, studying, or taking a shower, seem less important.
When there is not enough dopamine in this circuit, people become stiff and shaky, and they move slowly. The treatment is to prescribe drugs that boost dopamine.
The pleasure we get when we socialize for no other reason than the enjoyment of the company of others is an H&N experience.
Many video games are also beautiful, another way of stimulating H&N delight.
The dopamine desire circuit is powerful. It focuses attention, motivates, and thrills. It has a profound influence over the choices we make. Yet it isn’t all-powerful. Addicts get clean. Dieters lose weight. Sometimes we switch off the TV, get off the couch, and go for a run. What kind of circuit in the brain is powerful enough to oppose dopamine? Dopamine is. Dopamine opposing dopamine. The circuit that opposes the desire circuit might be called the dopamine control circuit.
Impulse without reason is not enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
Desire dopamine makes us want things. It is the source of raw desire: give me more. But
Removing dopamine appeared to diminish a rat’s will to work.
The ability to put forth effort is dopaminergic. The quality of that effort can be influenced by any number of other factors, but without dopamine, there is no effort at all.
We need to believe we can succeed before we are able to succeed. This influences tenacity. We
A relationship that is formed for the purpose of accomplishing a goal is called agentic, and it is orchestrated by dopamine. The other person acts as an extension of you, an agent who assists you in achieving your goal. For example, relationships we make at networking events are primarily agentic, and typically result in mutual gain. Affiliative relationships, on the other hand, are for the purpose of enjoying social interactions.
Dopamine wants more, and it doesn’t care how it gets it. Moral or immoral, dominant or submissive, it’s all
the same to dopamine, as long as it leads to a better future.
For them, life is about the future, about improvement, about innovation. Despite the money and even fame that comes from their efforts, they are usually unhappy.
The most common treatments for ADHD are Ritalin and amphetamine,
People who live with ADHD are at high risk of addiction, especially adolescents, because of their poorly functioning frontal lobes.
association does not imply causation. Just
Emotion is almost always a liability that interferes with calculated action.
Emotion is an H&N experience. It’s what we feel right here, right now. Emotion is critical to our ability to understand the world, but emotions can sometimes overwhelm us.
people who have what we call “a cool head,” people who are more dopaminergic, are able to suppress this response, and make more deliberate choices that often work better. One of our evolutionary ancestors,
The detachment test measured traits such as the tendency to avoid sharing personal information and to become involved with other people. The
Willpower is like a muscle. It becomes fatigued with use, and after a fairly short period of time, it gives out.
Resisting temptation seems to have produced a psychic cost, in the sense that afterward participants were more inclined to give up easily in the face of frustration.”
The creative mind is the most potent force on earth. No oil well, gold mine, or thousand-acre farm can compete with the wealth-producing possibilities of a creative idea. Creativity is the brain at its best. Mental illness is the opposite. It reflects a brain struggling to manage even the most ordinary challenges of everyday life. Yet madness and genius, the worst and the best the brain can do, both depend on dopamine. Because of this basic chemical connection, madness and genius are more closely connected to each other than either is to the way ordinary brains work.
In schizophrenia the brain short-circuits, attaching salience to ordinary things that ought to be familiar and therefore ignored. Another name for this is low latent inhibition. Typically, latent is used to describe things that
are hidden, such as “a latent talent for music” or “a latent demand for flying cars.” The way it’s used in the phrase latent inhibition is somewhat different. It’s not that a thing starts out hidden, it’s that we make it hidden because it’s not important to us.
If you live next to a fire station, even the sounds of sirens will be inhibited after your dopamine circuits realize that nothing ever happens when they start to wail.
