Guest: Dr. David Kleinfeld
From the thrill of hearing an ice cream truck approaching to the spikes of pleasure while sipping fine wine, the neurological messenger known as dopamine has been popularly described as the brain's "feel good" chemical related to reward and pleasure. A ubiquitous neurotransmitter that carries signals between brain cells, dopamine, among its many functions, is involved in multiple aspects of cognitive processing. The chemical messenger has been extensively studied from the perspective of external cues, or "deterministic" signals. Instead, University of California San Diego researchers recently set out to investigate less understood aspects related to spontaneous impulses of dopamine. Their results, published July 23 in the journal Current Biology, have shown that mice can willfully manipulate these random dopamine pulses.
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Show Notes:
Feel Good' Brain Messenger Can Be Willfully Controlled
[3:53] Inspiration for this research.
- The existing research on dopamine and its role in finding saliency on past events that lead to future outcomes.
[6:21] Study design
[8:50] Noradrenaline normally constricts bloodflow, but it causes both expansion and restriction in the brain.
[18:21] Epigenetics- what if the random pulses of dopamine are from recognizing input from the environment that doesn’t seem to matter anymore?
[24:36] What do the results change about the way that we should look at dopamine in the brain?
- If there is a big “noise”, ie a change in plans type stressor, there has to be a wave or pulse to account for plasticity in the brain.
[27:30] Does dopamine play a role in curiosity and motivation?
[35:00] What about harnessing dopamine?
[39:00] Caffeine
[48:40] Key takeaways.
- Reevaluation of current understandings can be a good thing.
