6 ms·

Why Dopamine Makes People More Impulsive

105 points by neurosphere 11y ago

graeme 11y ago
If this is accurate, is there any research on activities that can regulate dopamine activity and reduce impulsivity?
- nibs 11y ago
  Dopamine regulates "seeking" behavior. One can direct their "seeking" to good things (achievement of something that benefits your family or community) or bad things (drug induced highs, money at all costs). Probably educating people on how they are wired to seek things (a good drive when you are talking about going out and securing food/resources) and how to direct that towards healthy pursuits instead of unhealthy ones would go a long way. Lots of pharmaceuticals can regulate dopamine in various ways too. The issue as it relates to impulsivity seems to be caused by a combination of dopamine driven seeking behavior and more primal parts of the brain hijacking decision making. It is the combination of primal parts of the brain doing decision making with the brain's propensity for seeking that causes negative impulsivity, so that could be aided by increasing gray matter (meditation) and regulating dopamine (healthy seeking) but you can only do so much. It seems like so much "crime" is really impulsivity, and so I often have thought about ways you can reduce impulsivity, but it always seems to come at the cost of considerably altering how someone's brain works, which not everyone is open to.
- 0xcde4c3db 11y ago
  As a layperson, the research I've seen (which focuses on treatment of psychotic disorders) suggests that the only activity known to reliably reduce dopamine activity is taking antipsychotic drugs, a caveat being that there's a decent amount of disagreement as to how big a role dopamine specifically plays in psychotic symptoms (and hence how much we can assume that observed symptom reduction correlates to dopamine antagonism). A major issue with these drugs is that they tend to downregulate dopamine activity very broadly, often screwing up the central nervous system, metabolism, and possibly even immune function. Dopamine seems to be a versatile molecule that gets involved in a lot of processes.
carbocation 11y ago
I often wonder why we refer to the neurotransmitters as making people depressed/impulsive/etc rather than referring to specific groups of neurons that presumably mediate those experiences or behaviors.
- azernik 11y ago
  Because the neurotransmitters are all we know enough to experiment with so far. Like the joke about the drunk looking for his keys only right next to the door - "because that's where the light is".
- marxidad 11y ago
  Neuronal pathways are based on a specific neurotransmitters. Dopamine usually means limbic system and seratonin usually means the cortex.
  - moments 11y ago
    The parent here makes a good point, and your comment appears to represent a common misconception about neurotransmitters. Both dopamine and serotonin can do different things depending on the system and the receptors that are actively present. Serotonin, for example, is mostly in your gut, not cortex! From wikipedia: "Approximately 90% of the human body's total serotonin is located in the enterochromaffin cells in the GI tract, where it is used to regulate intestinal movements." Dopamine is more specific, playing an important role in the limbic system, but is not limited to it. Its functions are not completely understood, and again depend on the receptor. Better to think of the function of neurotransmitters as dependent on both system AND receptor. The function of neurotransmitters, like dopamine, can be simplified, but others, like glutamate, are extremely complicated.
- kneel 11y ago
  Psychiatry has convinced a lot of people that mental disorders are often caused by 'chemical imbalances' whatever that means. The neural structure of the brain is very complex and involves dozens of neuronal molecules acting on a wide variety of neurons. It's incredible that we have psychiatrists prescribing all sorts of inhibitors/activators to alleviate various disorders. A lot of these drugs have unknown mechanisms. Even when the mechanism is understood no one understands how these drugs are working on the whole brain.
pizza 11y ago
I summarized this video by K.C. Berridge about some of his research on dopamine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TvKADY0QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TvKADY0QQ * animals that lose their dopamine learning mechanisms can still learn new things * even when dopamine is there, sometimes the system will continue to respond to unconditioned responses that are learned and expected * microinjections of amphetamine do not increase reward expectation - they increase peak of desire for reward - like when food is more tempting after not eating the whole day; sometimes a nasty salty taste is desirable in sodium deficiency, say * system is computing value, rather than learning * incentive-salience is a cue-trigged type of wanting; say someone else across the room lighting up a cig cueing your desire * the cue becomes an attention magnet - the cue is very hard to not want to pay attention to * the mesolimbic state of brain at a certain instant in time plays a huge role in amplifying responses to cues - hunger increases desire for food, repeated experience of drugs amplify the cue for drugs * an addict is a person who will have a super strong dopamine response when provided opportunity, due to sensitization of cue-triggered want - even months after enduring withdrawals, acquired hypersensitivity may still exist
caycep 11y ago
the weird part - impulse control disorders is a well described side effect of the "synthetic" and selective dopamine agonists (pramipexole, ropinirole, rotigotine) developed in the 80's and 90's for PD. It doesn't happen to everyone but seems to affect patients who have some sort of pre-existing obsession or compulsion that was more or less under control prior to the medicine. The odd part is that levodopa (basically good ol' dopamine) does not have this issue...
- meowface 11y ago
  I'm confused by what you're trying to say. The article repeatedly stated that levodopa has been observed to create higher impulsivity. I imagine any pure dopamine agonist can be prone to creating an impulse disorder if you take a sufficiently high dose.
  - caycep 11y ago
    The impulsivity seen in patients only happens in the synthetic, and possible more "selective" dopamine agonists that work more with certain dopamine receptor subtypes. Whereas, levodopa, which is a dopamine precursor and presumable not selective at all (ie. works on all receptors) do not have the impulsivity effect, or at least as dramatic, on these same or similar patients.
y0y 11y ago
This is really fascinating to me. As someone with adhd, my psychiatrist has explained it to me in terms of Dopamine. In his words, stimulant medications help to treat symptoms of adhd, in part, by creating dopamine when we either lack it or have a weakened response to it. This flood of dopamine keeps us from being impulsive, in his explanation. In other words, I am more impulsive without stimulants and the explanation I was given is that my brain is too busy seeking out dopamine and thus always looking for excitement. By providing dopamine through medication, that seeking behavior diminishes and I am more focused and less impulsive. So, something doesn't add up. Either my psychiatrist has been misinformed or there is a lot more going on here / my understanding is very off base.
- meowface 11y ago
  Yes, it is far more complicated than you're describing. I'm going to assume you're taking Adderall (an amphetamine salt mixture), but this also applies to methylphenidate. First: Stimulant drugs typically release or inhibit reuptake of both dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine actually converts into norepinephrine in the brain, complicating things further. L-DOPA, which is described in this article, is not a stimulant drug: it only raises dopamine concentration, and nothing else. It's the direct precursor molecule for dopamine. Raising norepinephrine along with dopamine can create a focused and patient effect in some people (and sometimes a somewhat euphoric effect); raising just dopamine will generally create a euphoric, relaxing, reward-seeking effect. I don't know the entire pharmacology behind why that is. I seem to recall that DA and NE may be able to directly modulate each other. Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine), another ADHD medication, has a higher dopamine:norepinephrine ratio than Adderall does (i.e. it releases proportionally more dopamine). It doesn't work for some ADHD sufferers, because they become too euphoric. Second: Stimulant medication is also more about trying to maintain steady levels of dopamine in the brain at all times, rather than constantly or intermittently fluctuating levels. If you were to take Adderall just once per week, for example, you would probably not get a lot of chronic relief. Taking small doses of L-DOPA every day could maybe help some ADHD sufferers after a week or two (though this is mostly just a theory on my part), for example, but this can lead to psychosis and many other dangerous problems, so is highly discouraged. Someone please feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong here. I don't have formal education in medicine or neurobiology.
utefan001 11y ago
Just got diagnosed with ADHD at 42 years old. Strattera has been a HUGE help. Of course there are varying degrees of ADHD. But if some of these descriptions fit you. You might have ADHD. "Everyone encounters some task he doesn't particularly enjoy, but most people are able to find a way to complete the boring aspects of their job, says de Marneffe. People with ADHD, however, have a hard time doing that." "If you (sometimes) fly off the handle in a fit of anger or frustration one moment but are completely over it in the next, it might be a sign of ADHD." -you have a hard time sitting for multiple hours http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490145,00.html http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490145,00.html --15 Signs You May Have Adult ADHD--
- Reedx 11y ago
  Doesn't everyone have a hard time completing boring jobs and sitting for hours?
  - utefan001 11y ago
    My Dad didn't. As for me, for some tasks, such as writing documentation for something I knew nobody would ever read, my brain would refuse to focus. I would look for more important things to do and never get a page of documentation done.
    - miguelrochefort 11y ago
      How is writing documentation that nobody will ever read a thing anyone should be motivated for? Do people without ADHD agree to do useless things because they're told to?
      - cstrahan 11y ago
        If it's that or be fired, I think most people would do what they're told. There are some people, however, that will, in sheer determination to do what is expected of them, stare anxiously at their screen, hoping to focus their attention to the task at hand. No distractions, just a text editor waiting for some text. The problem is, the thoughts just don't surface. They try to psych themselves up, remember that their lively hood depends on it, that they don't want to let their coworkers down, etc. Sure, their gut tells them that they're working on the wrong solution to the wrong problem, but they remind themselves to keep a good attitude, remembering that this is what their employer deems both valuable and necessary. The hours tick by. It's 6pm, but they're convinced that they'll be able to turn it around. A couple more hours pass by. "If I just get this done, I get to spend time with my family, or go see my friends, or have some semblance of balance." It's 10pm. They cry for a bit, manage to get a bit of work done, and shortly after 1am, they hop in bed and call it a day. As they doze off, they lament their inability to power through uninspiring work (particularly work that they know could be obviated by better practices/tools/business-sense/etc.) If you've _never_ experienced something like that, then I suppose you either don't have ADHD, or you've only had phenomenal working experiences.

105 points by neurosphere 11y ago

graeme 11y ago

If this is accurate, is there any research on activities that can regulate dopamine activity and reduce impulsivity?

nibs 11y ago
Dopamine regulates "seeking" behavior. One can direct their "seeking" to good things (achievement of something that benefits your family or community) or bad things (drug induced highs, money at all costs). Probably educating people on how they are wired to seek things (a good drive when you are talking about going out and securing food/resources) and how to direct that towards healthy pursuits instead of unhealthy ones would go a long way. Lots of pharmaceuticals can regulate dopamine in various ways too. The issue as it relates to impulsivity seems to be caused by a combination of dopamine driven seeking behavior and more primal parts of the brain hijacking decision making. It is the combination of primal parts of the brain doing decision making with the brain's propensity for seeking that causes negative impulsivity, so that could be aided by increasing gray matter (meditation) and regulating dopamine (healthy seeking) but you can only do so much. It seems like so much "crime" is really impulsivity, and so I often have thought about ways you can reduce impulsivity, but it always seems to come at the cost of considerably altering how someone's brain works, which not everyone is open to.
0xcde4c3db 11y ago
As a layperson, the research I've seen (which focuses on treatment of psychotic disorders) suggests that the only activity known to reliably reduce dopamine activity is taking antipsychotic drugs, a caveat being that there's a decent amount of disagreement as to how big a role dopamine specifically plays in psychotic symptoms (and hence how much we can assume that observed symptom reduction correlates to dopamine antagonism). A major issue with these drugs is that they tend to downregulate dopamine activity very broadly, often screwing up the central nervous system, metabolism, and possibly even immune function. Dopamine seems to be a versatile molecule that gets involved in a lot of processes.

carbocation 11y ago

I often wonder why we refer to the neurotransmitters as making people depressed/impulsive/etc rather than referring to specific groups of neurons that presumably mediate those experiences or behaviors.

azernik 11y ago
Because the neurotransmitters are all we know enough to experiment with so far. Like the joke about the drunk looking for his keys only right next to the door - "because that's where the light is".
marxidad 11y ago
Neuronal pathways are based on a specific neurotransmitters. Dopamine usually means limbic system and seratonin usually means the cortex.
- moments 11y ago
  The parent here makes a good point, and your comment appears to represent a common misconception about neurotransmitters. Both dopamine and serotonin can do different things depending on the system and the receptors that are actively present. Serotonin, for example, is mostly in your gut, not cortex! From wikipedia: "Approximately 90% of the human body's total serotonin is located in the enterochromaffin cells in the GI tract, where it is used to regulate intestinal movements." Dopamine is more specific, playing an important role in the limbic system, but is not limited to it. Its functions are not completely understood, and again depend on the receptor. Better to think of the function of neurotransmitters as dependent on both system AND receptor. The function of neurotransmitters, like dopamine, can be simplified, but others, like glutamate, are extremely complicated.
kneel 11y ago
Psychiatry has convinced a lot of people that mental disorders are often caused by 'chemical imbalances' whatever that means. The neural structure of the brain is very complex and involves dozens of neuronal molecules acting on a wide variety of neurons. It's incredible that we have psychiatrists prescribing all sorts of inhibitors/activators to alleviate various disorders. A lot of these drugs have unknown mechanisms. Even when the mechanism is understood no one understands how these drugs are working on the whole brain.

pizza 11y ago

I summarized this video by K.C. Berridge about some of his research on dopamine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TvKADY0QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TvKADY0QQ * animals that lose their dopamine learning mechanisms can still learn new things * even when dopamine is there, sometimes the system will continue to respond to unconditioned responses that are learned and expected * microinjections of amphetamine do not increase reward expectation - they increase peak of desire for reward - like when food is more tempting after not eating the whole day; sometimes a nasty salty taste is desirable in sodium deficiency, say * system is computing value, rather than learning * incentive-salience is a cue-trigged type of wanting; say someone else across the room lighting up a cig cueing your desire * the cue becomes an attention magnet - the cue is very hard to not want to pay attention to * the mesolimbic state of brain at a certain instant in time plays a huge role in amplifying responses to cues - hunger increases desire for food, repeated experience of drugs amplify the cue for drugs * an addict is a person who will have a super strong dopamine response when provided opportunity, due to sensitization of cue-triggered want - even months after enduring withdrawals, acquired hypersensitivity may still exist

caycep 11y ago

the weird part - impulse control disorders is a well described side effect of the "synthetic" and selective dopamine agonists (pramipexole, ropinirole, rotigotine) developed in the 80's and 90's for PD. It doesn't happen to everyone but seems to affect patients who have some sort of pre-existing obsession or compulsion that was more or less under control prior to the medicine. The odd part is that levodopa (basically good ol' dopamine) does not have this issue...

meowface 11y ago
I'm confused by what you're trying to say. The article repeatedly stated that levodopa has been observed to create higher impulsivity. I imagine any pure dopamine agonist can be prone to creating an impulse disorder if you take a sufficiently high dose.
- caycep 11y ago
  The impulsivity seen in patients only happens in the synthetic, and possible more "selective" dopamine agonists that work more with certain dopamine receptor subtypes. Whereas, levodopa, which is a dopamine precursor and presumable not selective at all (ie. works on all receptors) do not have the impulsivity effect, or at least as dramatic, on these same or similar patients.

y0y 11y ago

This is really fascinating to me. As someone with adhd, my psychiatrist has explained it to me in terms of Dopamine. In his words, stimulant medications help to treat symptoms of adhd, in part, by creating dopamine when we either lack it or have a weakened response to it. This flood of dopamine keeps us from being impulsive, in his explanation. In other words, I am more impulsive without stimulants and the explanation I was given is that my brain is too busy seeking out dopamine and thus always looking for excitement. By providing dopamine through medication, that seeking behavior diminishes and I am more focused and less impulsive. So, something doesn't add up. Either my psychiatrist has been misinformed or there is a lot more going on here / my understanding is very off base.

meowface 11y ago
Yes, it is far more complicated than you're describing. I'm going to assume you're taking Adderall (an amphetamine salt mixture), but this also applies to methylphenidate. First: Stimulant drugs typically release or inhibit reuptake of both dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine actually converts into norepinephrine in the brain, complicating things further. L-DOPA, which is described in this article, is not a stimulant drug: it only raises dopamine concentration, and nothing else. It's the direct precursor molecule for dopamine. Raising norepinephrine along with dopamine can create a focused and patient effect in some people (and sometimes a somewhat euphoric effect); raising just dopamine will generally create a euphoric, relaxing, reward-seeking effect. I don't know the entire pharmacology behind why that is. I seem to recall that DA and NE may be able to directly modulate each other. Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine), another ADHD medication, has a higher dopamine:norepinephrine ratio than Adderall does (i.e. it releases proportionally more dopamine). It doesn't work for some ADHD sufferers, because they become too euphoric. Second: Stimulant medication is also more about trying to maintain steady levels of dopamine in the brain at all times, rather than constantly or intermittently fluctuating levels. If you were to take Adderall just once per week, for example, you would probably not get a lot of chronic relief. Taking small doses of L-DOPA every day could maybe help some ADHD sufferers after a week or two (though this is mostly just a theory on my part), for example, but this can lead to psychosis and many other dangerous problems, so is highly discouraged. Someone please feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong here. I don't have formal education in medicine or neurobiology.

utefan001 11y ago

Just got diagnosed with ADHD at 42 years old. Strattera has been a HUGE help. Of course there are varying degrees of ADHD. But if some of these descriptions fit you. You might have ADHD. "Everyone encounters some task he doesn't particularly enjoy, but most people are able to find a way to complete the boring aspects of their job, says de Marneffe. People with ADHD, however, have a hard time doing that." "If you (sometimes) fly off the handle in a fit of anger or frustration one moment but are completely over it in the next, it might be a sign of ADHD." -you have a hard time sitting for multiple hours http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490145,00.html http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490145,00.html --15 Signs You May Have Adult ADHD--

Reedx 11y ago
Doesn't everyone have a hard time completing boring jobs and sitting for hours?
- utefan001 11y ago
  My Dad didn't. As for me, for some tasks, such as writing documentation for something I knew nobody would ever read, my brain would refuse to focus. I would look for more important things to do and never get a page of documentation done.
  - miguelrochefort 11y ago
    How is writing documentation that nobody will ever read a thing anyone should be motivated for? Do people without ADHD agree to do useless things because they're told to?
    - cstrahan 11y ago
      If it's that or be fired, I think most people would do what they're told. There are some people, however, that will, in sheer determination to do what is expected of them, stare anxiously at their screen, hoping to focus their attention to the task at hand. No distractions, just a text editor waiting for some text. The problem is, the thoughts just don't surface. They try to psych themselves up, remember that their lively hood depends on it, that they don't want to let their coworkers down, etc. Sure, their gut tells them that they're working on the wrong solution to the wrong problem, but they remind themselves to keep a good attitude, remembering that this is what their employer deems both valuable and necessary. The hours tick by. It's 6pm, but they're convinced that they'll be able to turn it around. A couple more hours pass by. "If I just get this done, I get to spend time with my family, or go see my friends, or have some semblance of balance." It's 10pm. They cry for a bit, manage to get a bit of work done, and shortly after 1am, they hop in bed and call it a day. As they doze off, they lament their inability to power through uninspiring work (particularly work that they know could be obviated by better practices/tools/business-sense/etc.) If you've _never_ experienced something like that, then I suppose you either don't have ADHD, or you've only had phenomenal working experiences.