6 ms·

In another life I was a research assistant in a lab studying drug addiction, and our operating assumption was that - like any other system in the brain - it's

by skohan 6y ago

In another life I was a research assistant in a lab studying drug addiction, and our operating assumption was that - like any other system in the brain - it's not as simple as saying "neurotransmitter X causes Y". But there does seem to be an awful lot of evidence (or at least there was a lot of evidence cerca 2008-2009) to suggest that dopamine is heavily involved in motivation and habit formation, which are easily linked to addiction.

k__ 6y ago
Half-OT: I never understood this. To me it seems random actions cause dopamin production. Like, how does the body know that it should release more dopamin when I scroll HN than when I learn Rust, or ride my bike?
- Simulacra 6y ago
  I think it’s your brain. Something stimulates the production of dopamine, so your brain rewards you. that reward in turn wants you to get more reward. I think that’s why we keep hitting refresh on Facebook and all the social media and hacker news, trying to get that next hit of “happy”
  - smogcutter 6y ago
    Parent is asking why anything in particular should stimulate the production of dopamine.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  Phasic dopamine and tonic dopamine may be coding two different things. IIRC, phasic dopamine helps to code the "value of effort".
- Pelic4n 6y ago
  HN is not different to other social media. It will feed you a lot of small, digestible units of content that will do something to you. Each of these feelings are rewarded by a hit of dopamin. The dopamin flow is neat, but not enough to makes you feel great or like you've accomplished something. So you go for more and you keep scrolling. You will not react the same to each unit of content, which create a very addictive system known as a skinner box (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber). It will continuously give you small hits of dopamin, sometimes giving you a lot, keeping you hooked for those big hits in a very tight feedback loop. Learning Rust, while stimulating, does not has that tight reward loop, so you are not addicted to learning Rust but to scrolling HN as your easy dopamin dispenser. You need to invest a lot of effort into learning something complex as Rust (or painting, or whatever which require a good amount of knowledge and practice.) before getting that dopamin reward.
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  I think many folks here didn't actually read the article, which addresses some of these questions. Dopamine is a learning marker that is a precursor to rewards. The first time you get the big reward, there is no dopamine, but you also might not remember it particularly well. The next time you are engaged in a behavior the previously gave you a reward, you get a hit of dopamine which helps you pay extra attention to the details surrounding the reward hit. That is, it is the habit drug. It helps you remember the precise nature of recurrent rewards, and presumably is "intended" to help you get better are arriving at the reward.
  - k__ 6y ago
    Ah, so the idea isn't that dopamin makes you feel good, but that "when" you feel good dopamin tries to help you to get this feeling quicker the next time in that context. Makes much more sense now, thanks!
    - 488643689 6y ago
      Dopamine is part of pleasure too, but most importantly it's "anticipation of reward" or how long you can focus on an action until your brain evaluates the result. This is what's broken in ADHD and why people affected profit from increasing dopamine with some stimulants.
  - Igelau 6y ago
    > many folks here didn't actually read the article I've seen some dreck on PsychologyToday. After the author used a weak metaphor as an excuse to lead the article with Kim Kardashian's bust, and slammed other opinions as "kindergarten brain science", I didn't bother to see if there was anything subtle or worthwhile here. It's not the fault of readers if most of them were alienated quickly and bailed out. It's the fault of poor writing and editing that were indicative of time being wasted.
  - jariel 6y ago
    So this is very insightful. Is this why activities associated with bad 'dopamine habits' are so strongly correlated with said the bad habits that involved dopamine? After having quit smoking, I find myself desperately wanting to do the 'break thing' whereby you stop what you're doing, take 5 minutes to just stand, relax and and enjoy the moment for a second while ignoring the stress. I honestly don't even think I want the cigarette, just everything else about that experience.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Like, how does the body know that it should release more dopamin when I scroll HN than when I learn Rust, or ride my bike? Any basic psychology course or textbook will provide the context to understand this. You could look at it as operant conditioning, and there are probably much more nuanced and data driven explanations that I'm ignorant of.
- Geee 6y ago
  There's this thing called "Dopamine detox" which is basically trying to restrain from all the easy dopamine sources such as social media, news, games etc. and after a while learning Rust becomes as easy to accomplish than scrolling HN.
  - stevewodil 6y ago
    Learning Rust will never be as easy as scrolling through social media or playing a video game. The cognitive effort required to "learn Rust" is much greater than scrolling social media, watching YouTube, etc. and doesn't provide the same reward/stimulation. The brain will always crave the easier sources of dopamine and prefers to be on auto-pilot. In my opinion having done a few of them, a dopamine detox is likely a waste of time, although disconnecting from electronics can be a nice break if you need/want that. You will never want to start learning Rust because there's always easier sources of dopamine for your brain to indulge in. The key is starting anyways. Open the Rust docs and start trying. I only require myself to do 10 minutes of coding per day. Usually, after the 10 minutes my brain is already engaged and I continue for multiple hours on that momentum. Occasionally I'm having an off day and can't get myself to focus/engage properly for whatever reason and after the 10 minutes or the one small change I wanted to make is over I stop. Even just the 10 minutes each day is infinitely more than continuing to do nothing.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    > There's this thing called "Dopamine detox" That's a pseudoscientific narrative. It's not literally based on the science of dopamine. It's based on the pop-science dopamine metaphor. It's nowhere near scientifically accurate. Don't read too much into it.
    - Voxoff 6y ago
      Yes! This is so pertinent/understated. Do you know of anything that elucidates the oversimplifications of dopamine popscience? Edit: This does a good job: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/03/dopamine-the-unsexy-truth https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/03/dopamine-the...
- 488643689 6y ago
  > Like, how does the body know that it should release more dopamin when I scroll HN than when I learn Rust, or ride my bike? I think dopamine is not "reward", but "anticipation of reward". It's how long your brain can wait untill it evaluates the success of an action. Upon success you gain more dopamine, which enables you to do new tasks. So dopamine is essential in executive functions like planning and focus. The problem arises from the evolutionary adaptations we carry, like finding scarce cheap energy like easy carbs (pre agricultural world had nothing sweeter than a carrot), which gives us dopamine from eating sweets today. Your brain also likes new information, which does not leave your model of reality in shambles. There are probably other mundane "self-efficacy" experiences rewarded, like voting and commenting. I assume there is some feedback loop which will make the pleasant feeling of actual reward greater, the less "anticipation of reward" dopamine was spend. This is basically a scarcity adapted self-improvement algorithm, which is defunct in modern abundance.
refurb 6y ago
to suggest that dopamine is heavily involved in motivation and habit formation, which are easily linked to addiction. This is a great, succinct summary of (some of) dopamines role (from our limited understanding) in the brain. It’s complex, but based on the tools we have to manipulate and measure dopamine, it’s a part of addiction but it doesn’t explain everything. And dopamine plays an important role in other functions like movement (I.e. Parkinson’s disease).
- superkuh 6y ago
  In the jargon of the field, it's neccessary but maybe not sufficient. Anyway, dopaminergic firing in the ventral palidum does code for anticipated reward and incentive salience. It's just that dopamine has nothing to do with actual pleasure or enjoyment (that'd be the lateral shell of the nucleus accumbens and glutamate firing). Dopaminergic populations are prediction and addiction.
limeblack 6y ago
If you read into the D1 receptor values you will quickly conclude that deregulation causes up regulation so its correct to say they are not addictive, but dopamine receptors are some of the worst off receptors in the body for regulation ignoring Opiods and anxiety/sleep medications.
rjkennedy98 6y ago
> dopamine is heavily involved in motivation and habit formation, which are easily linked to addiction. You could literally say this about most major neurotransmitters. Frankly, the fact that the scientific community allows things like the chemical imbalance theory and dopamine addiction theories and other pseudoscience to gain such mainstream acceptance delegitimizes the institution. Scientists should not be defending such statements in the wishy-washy way you did above.
- skohan 6y ago
  What do you mean exactly? Are you arguing that dopamine activity in the Nucleus Accumbens does not play a particular mechanistic role in reward seeking behavior? Or that norepinephrine plays an equivalent role in this mechanism? I'm not sure where I defended the chemical imbalance theory in my comment.

by skohan 6y ago

k__ 6y ago

Half-OT: I never understood this. To me it seems random actions cause dopamin production. Like, how does the body know that it should release more dopamin when I scroll HN than when I learn Rust, or ride my bike?

Simulacra 6y ago
I think it’s your brain. Something stimulates the production of dopamine, so your brain rewards you. that reward in turn wants you to get more reward. I think that’s why we keep hitting refresh on Facebook and all the social media and hacker news, trying to get that next hit of “happy”
- smogcutter 6y ago
  Parent is asking why anything in particular should stimulate the production of dopamine.
eli_gottlieb 6y ago
Phasic dopamine and tonic dopamine may be coding two different things. IIRC, phasic dopamine helps to code the "value of effort".
Pelic4n 6y ago
HN is not different to other social media. It will feed you a lot of small, digestible units of content that will do something to you. Each of these feelings are rewarded by a hit of dopamin. The dopamin flow is neat, but not enough to makes you feel great or like you've accomplished something. So you go for more and you keep scrolling. You will not react the same to each unit of content, which create a very addictive system known as a skinner box (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber). It will continuously give you small hits of dopamin, sometimes giving you a lot, keeping you hooked for those big hits in a very tight feedback loop. Learning Rust, while stimulating, does not has that tight reward loop, so you are not addicted to learning Rust but to scrolling HN as your easy dopamin dispenser. You need to invest a lot of effort into learning something complex as Rust (or painting, or whatever which require a good amount of knowledge and practice.) before getting that dopamin reward.
IggleSniggle 6y ago
I think many folks here didn't actually read the article, which addresses some of these questions. Dopamine is a learning marker that is a precursor to rewards. The first time you get the big reward, there is no dopamine, but you also might not remember it particularly well. The next time you are engaged in a behavior the previously gave you a reward, you get a hit of dopamine which helps you pay extra attention to the details surrounding the reward hit. That is, it is the habit drug. It helps you remember the precise nature of recurrent rewards, and presumably is "intended" to help you get better are arriving at the reward.
- k__ 6y ago
  Ah, so the idea isn't that dopamin makes you feel good, but that "when" you feel good dopamin tries to help you to get this feeling quicker the next time in that context. Makes much more sense now, thanks!
  - 488643689 6y ago
    Dopamine is part of pleasure too, but most importantly it's "anticipation of reward" or how long you can focus on an action until your brain evaluates the result. This is what's broken in ADHD and why people affected profit from increasing dopamine with some stimulants.
- Igelau 6y ago
  > many folks here didn't actually read the article I've seen some dreck on PsychologyToday. After the author used a weak metaphor as an excuse to lead the article with Kim Kardashian's bust, and slammed other opinions as "kindergarten brain science", I didn't bother to see if there was anything subtle or worthwhile here. It's not the fault of readers if most of them were alienated quickly and bailed out. It's the fault of poor writing and editing that were indicative of time being wasted.
- jariel 6y ago
  So this is very insightful. Is this why activities associated with bad 'dopamine habits' are so strongly correlated with said the bad habits that involved dopamine? After having quit smoking, I find myself desperately wanting to do the 'break thing' whereby you stop what you're doing, take 5 minutes to just stand, relax and and enjoy the moment for a second while ignoring the stress. I honestly don't even think I want the cigarette, just everything else about that experience.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> Like, how does the body know that it should release more dopamin when I scroll HN than when I learn Rust, or ride my bike? Any basic psychology course or textbook will provide the context to understand this. You could look at it as operant conditioning, and there are probably much more nuanced and data driven explanations that I'm ignorant of.
Geee 6y ago
There's this thing called "Dopamine detox" which is basically trying to restrain from all the easy dopamine sources such as social media, news, games etc. and after a while learning Rust becomes as easy to accomplish than scrolling HN.
- stevewodil 6y ago
  Learning Rust will never be as easy as scrolling through social media or playing a video game. The cognitive effort required to "learn Rust" is much greater than scrolling social media, watching YouTube, etc. and doesn't provide the same reward/stimulation. The brain will always crave the easier sources of dopamine and prefers to be on auto-pilot. In my opinion having done a few of them, a dopamine detox is likely a waste of time, although disconnecting from electronics can be a nice break if you need/want that. You will never want to start learning Rust because there's always easier sources of dopamine for your brain to indulge in. The key is starting anyways. Open the Rust docs and start trying. I only require myself to do 10 minutes of coding per day. Usually, after the 10 minutes my brain is already engaged and I continue for multiple hours on that momentum. Occasionally I'm having an off day and can't get myself to focus/engage properly for whatever reason and after the 10 minutes or the one small change I wanted to make is over I stop. Even just the 10 minutes each day is infinitely more than continuing to do nothing.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > There's this thing called "Dopamine detox" That's a pseudoscientific narrative. It's not literally based on the science of dopamine. It's based on the pop-science dopamine metaphor. It's nowhere near scientifically accurate. Don't read too much into it.
  - Voxoff 6y ago
    Yes! This is so pertinent/understated. Do you know of anything that elucidates the oversimplifications of dopamine popscience? Edit: This does a good job: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/03/dopamine-the-unsexy-truth https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/03/dopamine-the...
488643689 6y ago
> Like, how does the body know that it should release more dopamin when I scroll HN than when I learn Rust, or ride my bike? I think dopamine is not "reward", but "anticipation of reward". It's how long your brain can wait untill it evaluates the success of an action. Upon success you gain more dopamine, which enables you to do new tasks. So dopamine is essential in executive functions like planning and focus. The problem arises from the evolutionary adaptations we carry, like finding scarce cheap energy like easy carbs (pre agricultural world had nothing sweeter than a carrot), which gives us dopamine from eating sweets today. Your brain also likes new information, which does not leave your model of reality in shambles. There are probably other mundane "self-efficacy" experiences rewarded, like voting and commenting. I assume there is some feedback loop which will make the pleasant feeling of actual reward greater, the less "anticipation of reward" dopamine was spend. This is basically a scarcity adapted self-improvement algorithm, which is defunct in modern abundance.

refurb 6y ago

to suggest that dopamine is heavily involved in motivation and habit formation, which are easily linked to addiction. This is a great, succinct summary of (some of) dopamines role (from our limited understanding) in the brain. It’s complex, but based on the tools we have to manipulate and measure dopamine, it’s a part of addiction but it doesn’t explain everything. And dopamine plays an important role in other functions like movement (I.e. Parkinson’s disease).

superkuh 6y ago
In the jargon of the field, it's neccessary but maybe not sufficient. Anyway, dopaminergic firing in the ventral palidum does code for anticipated reward and incentive salience. It's just that dopamine has nothing to do with actual pleasure or enjoyment (that'd be the lateral shell of the nucleus accumbens and glutamate firing). Dopaminergic populations are prediction and addiction.

limeblack 6y ago

If you read into the D1 receptor values you will quickly conclude that deregulation causes up regulation so its correct to say they are not addictive, but dopamine receptors are some of the worst off receptors in the body for regulation ignoring Opiods and anxiety/sleep medications.

rjkennedy98 6y ago

> dopamine is heavily involved in motivation and habit formation, which are easily linked to addiction. You could literally say this about most major neurotransmitters. Frankly, the fact that the scientific community allows things like the chemical imbalance theory and dopamine addiction theories and other pseudoscience to gain such mainstream acceptance delegitimizes the institution. Scientists should not be defending such statements in the wishy-washy way you did above.

skohan 6y ago
What do you mean exactly? Are you arguing that dopamine activity in the Nucleus Accumbens does not play a particular mechanistic role in reward seeking behavior? Or that norepinephrine plays an equivalent role in this mechanism? I'm not sure where I defended the chemical imbalance theory in my comment.