We have a dopamine problem
The neurotransmitter dopamine causes a lot of panic these days.
According to books, articles, and social media posts, our urge for a quick dopamine hit is why we crave cookies and spend too much time on Instagram. If we keep giving in to these desires, the rationale goes, we will never be able to stop ourselves.
“We have transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance,” wrote Dr. Anna Lembke, a Stanford psychiatrist, in her bestseller “Dopamine Nation.” Consequently, we are all at risk of ‘compulsive overconsumption’.
A self-improvement trend often referred to as “dopamine fasting” that emerged in 2019 revolves around abstaining from anything that triggers the release of the chemical. The premise is that modern entertainment rewires the brain so that slower pursuits are no longer enjoyable.
Videos tagged #dopamine, which many claim teach viewers how to manipulate the brain chemical, have more than 700 million views on TikTok. A influencer offers a “free list of things that numb dopamine” so you can “take back control of your life!”
Parents are equal advised to prevent kids from experiencing spikes in dopamine (meaning they shouldn’t be allowed to play video games or eat junk food), otherwise the insatiable need for the neurotransmitter will lead to bad behavior.
Scientists who study dopamine say these concerns have been blown out of proportion. They “are not necessarily based on the actual science of what we know about dopamine,” says Vijay Namboodiri, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Before you swear off dopamine — and the prospect of some joy in life — it’s important to understand the biggest misconceptions about the neurotransmitter and what the research shows.
Dopamine is not necessarily good or bad.
The idea that dopamine produces feelings of pleasure has emerged early experiments in rodents, and later in humans, who found that the dopamine system was activated when animals encountered a reward. Food, sex, drugs and social interactions all trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, suggesting that the neurochemical is linked to every good feeling.
But upon further investigation in the 1990s, scientists discovered realized that dopamine is more closely related to the anticipation of a reward than on its receipt. Dopamine causes the desire for something and the motivation to go get it, not the pleasure of it.
“What we think it might do is something like desire,” says Talia N. Lerner, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Northwestern University. “It teaches your brain how to predict your needs and try to tailor your behavior to those needs.”
A neurochemical that controls desire may sound sinister, but the pursuit of rewards is not inherently a problem; it all depends on the context. Animals, from honey bees to humans, evolved dopamine systems to motivate them to seek food and sex to survive and reproduce.
“It’s an important part of why we’re here today,” said Kent C. Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. “We wouldn’t have evolved and we wouldn’t have survived, our ancestors, without dopamine.”
Dopamine is also essential for learning. In this context, surprise is the key element that causes dopamine neurons to fire, regardless of whether the outcome is rewarding or disappointing.
“Dopamine doesn’t necessarily tell you when something is good or bad, but when it’s better or worse than you expected,” said Dr. Lerner. That surge of dopamine helps you adjust your expectations and possibly adjust your behavior for the future.
A normal dose of dopamine will not rewire your brain.
Because of dopamine’s role in motivation and learning, the concern is that highly stimulating activities will hijack the neurotransmitter system so that it no longer works for smaller, everyday rewards. For someone addicted to video games, the thought of Monopoly might be less rewarding.
This concern is partly based on science. Long-term use of drugs that cause huge spikes in dopamine, such as cocaine and amphetamine, can cause the brain to shut down some of the receptors that the neurochemical acts on. This so-called tolerance means it takes more of the drug to get the same high.
Because video games and pornography can be addictive, some researchers – including Dr. Lembke – the hypothesis that they may cause similar signs of tolerance in the brain. However, in an interview with The New York Times, she admitted that this theory was derived from stimulant drug studies and that there is currently no evidence to back it up.
As a result, Dr. Berridge and others criticized the idea. One reason is that the amount of dopamine released in response to video games, pornography, social media, and junk food is significantly lower than the amount released in response to addictive drugs.
And while video games trigger a greater dopamine response than board games for some people, that doesn’t mean the board game causes a smaller dopamine release than it used to, and it’s not because of an inherent change in the dopamine. system, said Dr. Nambodiri. It also doesn’t mean that video game enthusiasts will never want to play board games again. The same goes for eating candy versus eating fruit or watching YouTube versus reading a book.
Taking a break from video games or social media can be a good idea if you want to spend more time on other pursuits. But that’s not because you need to reset your dopamine system, said Dr. Namboodiri. (There’s reason to believe that our digital lives have shortened our attention spans, but that’s another story.)
“If the advice someone gives you about what to do applies whether or not dopamine is involved, it’s probably helpful advice,” said Dr. Namboodiri. But he noted that “as a field, we’re still pretty far from a full understanding” of dopamine and how to manipulate it in everyday life.
Addiction is about more than dopamine.
Some rewarding behaviors can cause problems in people’s lives. While activities such as gambling, watching pornography, and playing video games do not stimulate dopamine release as much as drugs, they can lead to patterns of behavior similar to those seen in substance use disorder, i.e., continuing the activity despite severe distress. adverse effects.
But that’s the exception, not the rule. Most people do not lose their jobs or relationships as a result of these activities and do not experience any negative consequences for their health. About 2 to 3 percent of people watching pornography report being addicted to the behavior. Similarly, 2 to 3 percent of people who play online games qualify as an Internet gaming disorder.
“For some people, yes, this is a problem,” said Dr. Berridge. “For most people, that’s not a problem. We can function in the world and enjoy this world full of rewards.” As with most things related to health, moderation is key. You don’t have to deny yourself the pleasure of being a good or healthy person.
And while dopamine is involved in addiction, so are compulsions to use drugs or masturbate more complicated than a single neurotransmitter. “To say it’s just dopamine is an oversimplification,” said Dr. Lembke.
In fact, experimental attempts to treat addiction by altering dopamine activity in the brain have not worked. This type of compulsive behavior is also often associated with other mental illnesses or extreme stress during childhood.
“Unless you’re on a drug like cocaine, which is probably unhealthy all around, there isn’t necessarily a healthy or unhealthy way to use dopamine,” said Dr. Lerner. “It’s just about learning. And you can always learn something good, you can always learn something bad.”
Or, as Dr. Berridge put it, “dopamine is our friend, not just our enemy.”