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Dopamine is aneurotransmitterin the brain associated withpleasure, reward, motivation, andmotor control.
In psychology, dopamine is linked to feelings of gratification and is implicated in mood disorders, addiction, and certain behaviors when its levels are imbalanced.
Deeper learning:How dopamine was discoveredDeeper learning:How dopamine was discovered
Deeper learning:How dopamine was discovered
Function of dopamine
Below are some of the main functions associated with dopamine.
It is important to note that dopamine does not act in isolation. It works with other neurotransmitters and hormones, such asserotoninand adrenaline, to perform a variety of functions.
1. Pleasure and Reward
Dopamine acts as thebrain’s reward chemicalthat is released during pleasurable experiences, working with the brain’s reward system.
The flood of dopamine to the brain when experiencing a pleasurable stimulus (e.g., delicious food, video games, sex) can reinforce wanting to engage with this stimulus more due to the pleasurable feeling it causes.
In classical studies of rats, a surge of dopamine prompts the animal to press a lever to get a pellet of food repeatedly.
Dopamine is also released during theanticipation of reward. This creates powerful reinforcement cycles that encourage us to repeat behaviors that lead to a pleasant experience, making dopamine central to thebrain’s reward system.
2. Motivation and Learning
Dopamine plays a role inreward processing, reward prediction, and conditioned learning:
Dopamine drivesgoal-directed behavioranddecision-makingrelated to rewards. It helps to form crucial associations between our actions and their rewarding outcomes, which enhances our motivation to engage in beneficial activities.
Research has revealed that dopamine neurons demonstratesophisticated prediction capabilities.
These neurons activate when we encounter unexpected rewards. Over time, they begin responding more strongly to cues that predict the reward rather than the reward itself.
The neurons remain sensitive to whether an expected reward occurs or not, becoming inhibited when an anticipated reward fails to materialize.
The magnitude of potential rewards directly influences dopamine activity, withlarger rewards triggering an increased neuronal response.
Dopamine plays a vital role instrengthening associations between stimuli and rewardsthrough conditioned learning.
It enhances our response to cues associated with rewards and is essential for establishing and maintaining conditioned reinforcers.
So, dopamine helps modulate how we express learned associations andform new reward-based habits, creating a sophisticated system for learning from experience.
Dopamine helps form associations between actions and rewards. This enhances motivation to repeat rewarding activities andform habits.
3. Motor Control
Dopamine is essential forcoordinated movement, helps regulate muscle control, and influences balance and posture.
It is critical forinitiating voluntary movementsand can affect fine motor skills.
4. Cognitive Functions
Dopamine can enhance focus, attention, and concentration, helping tocontribute to executive functioning.
It supportsworking memory, planning, productivity, and mental alertness for task completion.
For example, if someone has been working hard on a project for a long time, they can experience a surge of dopamine activity when it is finally completed.
5. Mood Regulation
Dopamine influencesemotional responses and overall mood state, contributing to feelings of well-being.
It works with other neurotransmitters for mood balance and impacts emotional processing and emotional learning.
6. Physiological Functions
Dopamine also has physiological functions such as regulating sleep-wake cycles, and influencing thestress response, and digestive processes.
It can also affect blood flow and cancontrol hormone release, meaning it can module various autonomic functions in the body.
Where is dopamine found?
Dopamine is highly concentrated in areas of the brain called thesubstantia nigraand theventral tegmental area(VTA) in the midbrain. The VTA is a dopamine-rich nucleus located within the midbrain
Other brain areas where dopamine can be made are thehypothalamusand theolfactory bulb.
Dopamine pathways
Once produced in the VTA, dopamine is transported to other areas of the brain through different dopamine pathways, the two main ones being themesolimbicand themesocorticolpathways.
Other pathways include thenigrostriatalandtuberoinfundibularpathways.
Dopamine pathways are neuronal connections in which dopamine travels to areas of the brain and body to convey important information such as executive thinking, cognition, feelings of reward and pleasure, and voluntary movement.
Mesolimbic pathways
Beginning at the VTA, dopamine produced here projects to thenucleus accumbens. When here, dopamine primarily mediates feelings ofpleasure and reward.
For instance, if someone eats a food they enjoy, dopamine is released from the VTA to thenucleus accumbenswhich creates positive feelings that reinforce the behavior.
The activation of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway communicates that it wants to repeat what just happened to feel the rewarding sensation again.
Since the nucleus accumbens has connections to theamygdala, a region of thelimbic systemassociated with emotions, this attributes feelings towards the experienced reward.
Likewise, connections to thehippocampus,an area associated with memory, can attribute memories of pleasure to the experience to reinforce this sensation to happen again.
Mesocorticol pathways
As with the mesolimbic pathways, the mesocortical pathway starts with dopamine projections originating from the VTA.
From the VTA, signals are sent to theprefrontal cortex, an area involved in cognition, working memory, and decision-making.
Thus, activation of this pathway brings about the conscious experience of the pleasure and reward being experienced.
Attention, concentration, and decisionscan be made as a result of pleasure and reward.
Nigrostriatal pathways
This dopamine pathway is involved inmotor planning. The dopamine projections start in the substantia nigra, a basal ganglia structure located in the midbrain.
These projections go to thecaudate and putamen, which are also parts of the basal ganglia. The neurons in this pathwaystimulate purposeful movementand contain about 80% of the dopamine in the brain.
Tuberoinfundibular pathways
The dopamine neurons in this pathway originate in thehypothalamus, an area that plays a role in hormone production and helps to stimulate many important processes in the body.
Specifically, the neurons are in the arcuate and periventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus. These then project to theinfundibular regionof the hypothalamus.
In this pathway, dopamine is released into the portal circulation that connects this region to thepituitary gland.
What happens if you have too much dopamine?
High levels of dopamine can make peoplefeel euphoric in the short term; however, over time, it can be detrimental.A surplus of dopamine can result in morecompetitive behaviors, aggression, poor control over impulses, gambling behaviors, and addiction.As such, addictive drugs can increase levels of dopamine, encouraging the individual to continue to use these drugs to reach that pleasurable feeling of reward.This does not just have to be an addiction to drugs; people can be addicted to anything that gives them a surge of dopamine, such as video games, food, and social media use.
Excessive dopamine activity in specific brain pathways – particularly in the temporal and prefrontal areas – can lead to some of thepositive symptoms of schizophreniasuch as hallucinations and delusions.
What happens if you have too little dopamine?
Low dopamine levels may result in some of the following symptoms:
In more extreme cases, a lack of dopamine could result in conditions such asParkinson’s disease, dopamine transporter deficiency syndrome, or depression.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)is associated with low levels of dopamine and is associated with difficulties concentrating, paying attention, and impulsivity.
Since people with ADHD have lowered dopamine levels, they are more likely to carry out behaviors in order to obtain more dopamine.
How to manage dopamine levels
Focus on creating a balanced lifestyle that naturally supports healthy dopamine function:
When to Seek Help
Consult a healthcare provider if you experience:
Remember thatdopamine regulationis highly individual, and what works for one person may not work for another.
Always work with healthcare professionals when making significant changes to your lifestyle or starting any new treatment approach.
FAQs
How was dopamine discovered?
As part of her research, she examined the quantities of norepinephrine, epinephrine, and 3-hydroxytryramine from extracted brain tissues of several species.
Montagu speculated that there might be an additional catecholamine similar to hydroxytyramine, which she later confirmed to be what is known as dopamine.
Arvid Carlsson published research in the same year that confirmed dopamine was a neurotransmitter in the brain, as opposed to another precursor molecule.
What happens when you ‘dopamine fast’?
This can include phone use, social media, video games, delicious food, sex, and social interaction.
Taking breaks from behaviors that trigger strong amounts of dopamine release could allow the brain to recover and restore itself, being an antidote to the age of overstimulation we live in.
Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, suggests that taking a break from a stimulating activity (or all of them) will not reset dopamine levels, but it can stop the dopamine system from turning on constantly.
Dopamine fast is not believed to be something that can reduce dopamine, but having breaks from one or two pleasurable activities at a time can help in reducing impulsive behaviors.
References
Brisch, R., Saniotis, A., Wolf, R., Bielau, H., Bernstein, H. G., Steiner, J., Bogerts, B., Braun, K., Jankowski, Z., Kumaratilake, J., Henneberg, M. & Gos, T. (2014). The role of dopamine in schizophrenia from a neurobiological and evolutionary perspective: old fashioned, but still in vogue.Frontiers in psychiatry, 5, 47.
Bridges, N. (2016, November 25). Dopamine Pathways. Sanesco. https://sanescohealth.com/blog/dopamine-pathways/
Cannon, C. M., Scannell, C. A., & Palmiter, R. D. (2005). Mice lacking dopamine D1 receptors express normal lithium chloride‐induced conditioned taste aversion for salt but not sucrose.European Journal of Neuroscience,21(9), 2600-2604.
Carlsson, A. (1988). The current status of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. Neuropsychopharmacology:official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 1(3), 179-186.
Conrad, B. (n.d.). The Role of Dopamine as a Neurotransmitter in the Human Brain. Enzo. Retrieved 2021, November 5, from: https://www.enzolifesciences.com/science-center/technotes/2018/november/the-role-of-dopamine-as-a-neurotransmitter-in-the-human-brain/
Laruelle, M., Abi-Dargham, A., Van Dyck, C. H., Gil, R., D’Souza, C. D., Erdos, J., … & Innis, R. (1996). Single photon emission computerized tomography imaging of amphetamine-induced dopamine release in drug-free schizophrenic subjects.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,93(17), 9235-9240.
Mosquera, R., Odunowo, M., McNamara, T., Guo, X., & Petrie, R. (2020). The economic effects of Facebook. Experimental Economics, 23(2), 575-602.
Pietrangelo, A. (2019, November 5). How Does Dopamine Affect the Body? Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/dopamine-effects
Romo, R., & Schultz, W. (1990). Dopamine neurons of the monkey midbrain: contingencies of responses to active touch during self-initiated arm movements.Journal of neurophysiology, 63(3), 592-606.
Schultz, W., Apicella, P., Scarnati, E., & Ljungberg, T. (1992). Neuronal activity in monkey ventral striatum related to the expectation of reward. Journal of Neuroscience, 12(12), 4595-4610.
Seeman, P., Lee, T., Chau-Wong, M., & Wong, K. (1976). Antipsychotic drug doses and neuroleptic/dopamine receptors.Nature,261(5562), 717-719.
Sepah, C. (2019, August 7). The Definitive Guide to Dopamine Fasting 2.0 – The Hot Silicon Valley Trend. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dopamine-fasting-new-silicon-valley-trend-dr-cameron-sepah/
Wise, R. A. (2004). Dopamine, learning and motivation.Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5(6), 483-494.
Further Reading
Karina Ascunce GonzálezNeuroscience B.A. (Hons), Harvard UniversityPhD Neuroscience Student, Yale University
Karina Ascunce González
Neuroscience B.A. (Hons), Harvard University
PhD Neuroscience Student, Yale University
PhD Student at the Yale Biological & Biomedical Sciences' Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program interested in neurodegeneration, stem cell culture, and bioethics. AB in Neuroscience with a Secondary in Global Health & Health Policy from Harvard University. Karina has been published in peer reviewed journals.
Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
