Member-only story
The Myth of Dopamine
Dopamine is the media darling of any talk surrounding pleasure and addiction. It’s even entered into common conversation, where someone may blame their lack of self-control on trying to get a dopamine fix, equating the naturally occurring neurotransmitter to a drug. In fact, poor dopamine has become the centre of many accusations, seen as the neurotransmitter to blame for shortened attention, obesity, shopping-sprees and online arguments. It is the pleasure chemical, that makes us abandon all ethics in the service of feeling good. In some way, the form in which we talk about dopamine is similar to the Soma drug in Huxley’s Brave New World, keeping the population subordinate from acting out through keeping them in a state of contentment. However, viewing dopamine as the pleasure chemical is only telling us a small part of a very complex and nuanced story.
Perhaps a better way to conceptualize pleasure is in terms of reward. After all, is this not the by-product of the most worthy of rewards, whether it be love, success or freedom? When we pursue such rewards, we do in fact engage with the dopaminergic system. Pleasurable stimuli, from an adorable puppy to cocaine, activates tegmental neurones that then trigger the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. Dopamine can even be triggered by aesthetics, such as listening to a beautiful song. Conversely, stress and pain generally depletes dopamine. Too much…
