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Distinguishing between what we want and what we like can be difficult, but the disconnect is most dramatic when people become addicted to drugs.
Important
Like a guided missile, addictive drugs hit the desire circuit with an intense chemical blast. No natural behavior can match that. Not food, not sex, not anything.
drugs “hijack” the desire circuit. They stimulate it far more intensely than natural rewards like food or sex, which affect the same brain-motivation system.
Drug abuse is like cancer: it starts small but can quickly take over every aspect of a user’s life.
These are the activities that produce the largest dopamine surges. In a very literal way, large dopamine surges signal the need to react to life-and-death situations. Take shelter. Find food. Protect your children. These are tasks that hit the dopamine system hard. What could be more important? To an addict, drugs are more important. At least that’s the way it feels.
But addictive drugs are so powerful that they bypass the complicated circuitry of surprise and prediction and artificially ignite the dopamine system. In this way, they scramble everything up. All that’s left is a gnawing craving for more.
The ability to trigger dopamine in the desire circuit is what makes a drug addictive. Alcohol does it, heroin does it, cocaine does it, even marijuana does it.
Intensity varies by drug. Pot smokers are generally less desperate to get more of the drug than cocaine addicts.
Although craving never stops as long as an addict keeps using drugs, the brain gradually loses its ability to deliver the high—the desire circuit simply reacts less and less, so much so that they might as well replace the drug with salt water.
Giving in to craving doesn’t necessarily lead to pleasure because wanting is different from liking.
In an interview with The Economist, Dr. Berridge noted that the dopamine desire system is powerful and highly influential in the brain, whereas the liking circuit is tiny, fragile, and much harder to trigger. The difference between the two is the reason that “life’s intense pleasures are less frequent and less sustained than intense desire.”
Many of the decisions that addicts make, particularly the harmful decisions, are impulsive. Impulsive behavior occurs when too much value is placed on immediate pleasure and not enough on long-term consequences. Desire dopamine overpowers the more rational parts of the brain. We make choices that we know are not in our best interest, but we feel powerless to resist. It’s as if our free will has been compromised by an overwhelming urge for immediate pleasure;
Drugs that boost dopamine can also boost impulsive behavior. A cocaine addict once said, “When I do a line of cocaine, I feel like a
new man. And the first thing that new man wants is another line of cocaine.” When the addict stimulates his dopamine system, his dopamine system responds by demanding more stimulation.
the more active the dopamine cells were, the more money the volunteers expected to win.
The pleasure we get when we socialize for no other reason than the enjoyment of the company of others is an H&N experience. On the other hand, when we get together to accomplish a shared goal, it’s dopaminergic because we’re working toward a better future (even if it’s just capturing the enemy’s base). Video games provide both types of social pleasure.
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.
Desire dopamine makes us want things. It is the source of raw desire: give me more.
the dopamine control circuit is the source of imagination. It lets us peer into the future to see the consequences of decisions we might make right now, and thus allows us to choose which future we prefer.
Dopamine encourages us to maximize our resources by rewarding us when we do so—the act
doing something well, of making our future a better, safer place, gives us a little dopamine “buzz.”
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.
Keep using the drug and tolerance develops, so the user must take higher and higher doses to get the same effect. That’s dangerous. Too
much amphetamine can bring about personality changes. It can also cause psychosis, heart attacks, strokes, and death.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American poet, wrote: “Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.”
Quote Book
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.
But it’s not easy having so much dopamine coursing through the control circuits. It almost certainly played a significant role in Aldrin’s post-lunar struggle with depression, alcoholism, three divorces, suicidal impulses, and a stay on a psychiatric ward, which he described in his candid autobiography, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).2 Poor focus, concentration, and impulse control can severely interfere with their lives, and it can make them difficult to be with. Sometimes they don’t pay attention to details, or follow through on tasks.
One of the jobs of the control circuit is to keep the desire circuit in check; hence the impulse control problem associated with ADHD. When control dopamine is weak, people go after things they want with little thought about the long-term consequences.
people with ADHD have difficulty making friends. Who wants to be around someone who interrupts,
With few friends, poor grades, and cut off from healthy sources of pleasure, children living with untreated ADHD become more willing to pursue unhealthy sources of pleasure. In addition to drugs, they may also have problems with early sexual activity
Dopamine doesn’t come equipped with a conscience. Rather, it is a source of cunning fed by desire. When it’s revved up, it suppresses feelings of guilt, which is an H&N emotion.
Interesting
Dopamine pursues more, not morality; to dopamine, force and fraud are nothing more than tools.
Nothing is ever enough for dopamine. It is the pursuit that matters, and the victory, but there is no finish line, and never will be. Winning, like drugs, can be addictive.
Someone with a highly active desire circuit might be impulsive or difficult to satisfy, constantly seeking more.
Emotion is critical to our ability to understand the world, but emotions can sometimes overwhelm us. When that happens, we make less-logical decisions. Fortunately, dopamine’s opposition to H&N circuits can turn down the volume on emotion.
The neurotransmitter dopamine is the source of desire (via the desire circuit) and tenacity (via the control circuit); the passion that points the way and the willpower that gets us there.
when desire fixates on things that will bring us harm in the long run—a third piece of cake, an extramarital affair, or an IV injection of heroin—dopaminergic willpower turns around, and does battle with its companion circuit.
Willpower can help an alcoholic say no to a drink once, but it’s probably not going to work if he has to say no over and over again for months or years.
Part of the dopamine desire circuit becomes malignant in drug addiction, pushing the addict into compulsive, uncontrollable use. It has to be opposed by an equally potent force.
It’s better to be smart than strong.
Addicts who struggle to stay clean are most often defeated when they are unable to resist craving.
Desire dopamine cranks up, motivating the addict to use, and threatening to shut down completely if it doesn’t get what it wants.
But if a person is addicted to a drug, he’s not so sure. He may share the sentiment expressed by Saint Augustine while he was carrying on an affair with a young woman. He prayed, Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.
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.
Salience refers to the degree to which things are important, prominent, or conspicuous.
Another kind of salience is value.
Things are salient when they are important to you, if they have the potential to impact your well-being, for good or for evil. Things are salient if they have the potential to affect your future. Things are salient if they trigger desire dopamine. They broadcast the message, Wake up. Pay attention. Get excited. This is important.
A common delusion among people with schizophrenia is that people on TV are talking directly to them.
