Dr. Lembke: Dopamine Speed and Volume Dictate Addictiveness
Dr. Anna Lembke · Dr. Anna Lembke: Between Pleasure and Pain · Feb 21, 2023 · at 3:28
Dr. Anna Lembke, professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University, explains the neurobiological mechanism of dopamine in the human brain's reward circuitry.
0:00 / 0:30exact quote · 31.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Dopamine is the most important neurotransmitter for the experience of pleasure, reward, and motivation. It's not the only neurotransmitter involved in that process, but it is the common pathway for all reinforcing substances and behaviors. Anything that's reinforcing releases dopamine in a specific circuit of the brain called the reward circuit. The more dopamine it releases and the faster it releases dopamine, the more reinforcing and potentially addictive that substance or behavior is.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Dr. Anna Lembke
Dr. Lembke: Social Media Has Drugified Human Connection
“Human connection has become drugified through social media.”
Dr. Lembke: Resolving Underlying Trauma Will Not Spontaneously Cure Addiction
“That even if you could take away the depression or the trauma or give somebody, you know, the perfect life and everything they wanted, once they've developed the disease of addiction, they have addiction, and if you don't intervene for that problem, it's typic…”
Dr. Lembke: Poor People in Rich Nations Are Most Vulnerable to Addiction
“I think the most vulnerable, vulnerable people in the planet are actually poor people living in rich nations, as opposed to poor people living in poor nations, because poor people living in rich nations have all of the stress and trauma of unemployment, povert…”
Dr. Lembke: Converting Destructive Shame Into Pro-Social Shame Motivates Recovery
“A lot of what can both drive addiction but also motivate people to get into recovery is the shame they feel for their behaviors related to their use. If that shame you know, becomes destructive shame, it will perpetuate the addictive cycle, but if we can turn …”
Dr. Lembke: Ambien Adds Only 15 Minutes of Sleep by Inducing Amnesia
“The truth is that Ambien only gives you about 15 more minutes of sleep, which is surprising, right? Because people feel like I slept so much more deeply. What it really does is it makes you amnestic for the periods of awakening. So it doesn't actually have you…”
Dr. Lembke: Human Reward Circuitry Is Maladapted to Modern Abundance
“So this very fine-tuned neural circuitry, which, by the way, evolved over millions of years of evolution and remains unchanged across species, Is an absolutely genius circuit for a world of scarcity and ever-present danger, where we have to be relentless, rele…”