Dopamine: Everything You Need to Know (E62)
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Gill discusses dopamine. We know dopamine is associated with addiction, but she explains what dopamine does and how it makes it tougher to quit drinking. You’ll learn how dopamine reinforces addiction, what animals who have damage to their dopamine systems are like, how dopamine affects our desire to search for alcohol, and how punishers and aversion affect addiction.
Key Takeaways
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that we all know is involved in addiction. A common belief is that dopamine is what causes the pleasure we feel from alcohol. When we drink alcohol, endorphins are released that bind to opioid receptors in the brain triggering the release of dopamine into the nucleus accumbens. Endorphins are what feels good, and dopamine makes us pay attention to it and remember how it feels good.
The reason we have dopamine is because it’s a motivational chemical. When we do something like eating, drinking water, having sex or sleeping the brain makes that feel good because we need to do it to survive. Dopamine is released in the nucleus accumbens as a result creating a powerful memory of the pleasure we felt, so we are motivated to continue to do it.
Dopamine neurons respond by burst firing, or releasing a burst of dopamine. They become activated when a predictor of a reward is triggered, like when you sit down at the bar and the bartender comes over. Speaking to the bartender is a predictor because you know that your drink is on its way and your brain starts to respond to that by releasing a burst of dopamine. As we strengthen the associations between the predictor of a reward and the reward by repeating the behavior many times, burst responses develop for earlier predictors, like seeing the bar. This is another reason why it’s so hard to stop drinking, because it’s not just talking to the bartender that becomes a predictor and gets our brain excited and anticipating the reward of alcohol.
Sources
Raypole C. Dopamine and Addiction: Separating Myths and Facts. Healthline. 2019.
What Is Dopamine And How Does It Relate To Addiction? The Recovery Village Drug and Alcohol Rehab. 2016.
National Institute on Drug Abuse. Drugs and the Brain. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2021.
Wise, R. Robble, M. Dopamine and Addiction. Annual Reviews of Psychology. 2019.
Wheeler DS, Robble MA, Hebron EM, Dupont MJ, Ebben AL, Wheeler RA. 2015. Drug predictive cues activate aversion-sensitive striatal neurons that encode drug seeking. J. Neurosci. 35:7215–25
Cite this episode
Tietz, G. Episode 62: Dopamine and Addiction. Sober Powered. 2021.
