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My Dopamine Theory

AbraMontague

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 31, 2000
Messages
1,006
Hi everybody <mimics Dr.Nick from Simpsons>. I was just thinking about random things today, in particular drugs (I know surprise, surprise). Anyways here goes.
I always wondered why drugs which affect dopamine significantly perpetuate their own use and cause you to take more and more, even when you are already high. In a sense they never satisfy your drug appetite. I guess this could be attributed to the well know "psychologically reinforcing properties" of the neurotransmitter.
I noticed that opiates satisfy your mind and the last thing you think about is doing more opiates. MDMA on the other hand is my classic example. When you are rolling (usually when you have just passed the peak), you can only think about taking another roll. Some people take them continuously until they are physically exhausted. There is some satisfaction in the experience but only during the peak effect. Also, merely knowing that you don't have another pill to take on the comedown further diminishes your mental satisfaction.
Coke is another good example. All you think about is that next line, even when you have been up for 2 days and look like shit. And even when you are already high, you want to do more and get higher. Speed (Adderall and Ritalin in my case) is similar but not quite as compulsive as coke whores. Every time I take Adderall (say 20-50mg) and I get that nice buzz, I get the urge to take some more so I can "feel even better". During finals, I snorted Ritalin so much (at least 3 times a day the entire week) that by the end, I had a constant burning pain in one of my nostrils and they both continuously dripped water even though I could not blow anything out. I guess this is why stimulants aren't a very good life long drug for "self-medication".
Depressants like benzos aren't too bad in that they don't give you the urge to continuously pop z-bars or to take another after you have already had two. They aren't a good idea for long term use though because heavy dependence withdrawls could kill you. Alcohol is an exception in that you do keep drinking, sometimes to the point of getting sick. This isn't inherently related to dopamine though because continuous drinking is most likely because of frontal lobe activity depression which would provide you with the ability to reason that if you drink more you will get sick. Also, alcohol doesn't release dopamine significantly either.
It seems to me that a lot of people (barring psychedelic users) that use drugs, use them for purposes of self-medication (like me). Self-medicators like me are continuously looking for the drug that will satisfy us and make everything right for us mentally. Orthodox medicines like antidepressants never worked for me and they have side effects like lack of interest in sex. So I think that dopaminergic drugs are not good choices for self-medication at all, because of the properties I discussed earlier.
Sorry for rambling like I'm tweaked
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. And in case you missed my whole point, my dopamine theory (actually, alot of stuff I said is already established and factual so it isn't much of a theory and if it was, it wouldn't really be mine) is that said drugs never satisfy your appetite for dopamine. In fact, I remember my psychology teacher pointing out that food intake (which affects dopamine because it is rewarding) is regulated by two different parts of the hypothalamus (lateral and ventromedial I think). In rats that don't have the latter part they eat nonstop until they die from eating so much. Another example is sex, which obviously is dopaminergic. In men, there is a 15 minute or so refractory period in which sex is impossible, otherwise...
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. In women however (this is all from psych 201), there is no mechanism which prevents perpetual gratifaction (perpetual dopamine release) and so women can have multiple orgasms.
If you don't get anything out of my ramblings, plz don't flame me. Any discussion is welcome though.
 
interesting statement, it sounds right to me. btw, that last statement about women's dopamine, i wonder if thats why they react so differently to coke like PhreeX suggests.
 
Its not that women's dopamine is different. They just don't have a mechanism that limits the duration and intervals of sex, like men have.
 
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a woman's dopmaine system most definetly is different than a man's, seeing as how many girls get off on coke alot better than guys
 
“Coke is another good example. All you think about is that next line, even when you have been up for 2 days and look like shit. And even when you are already high, you want to do more and get higher.”
-Really?, not me…….I quit and go to sleep……..in fact after about 2-3 hours I don’t really get high, and it seems like a waste of money.
“When you are rolling (usually when you have just passed the peak), you can only think about taking another roll.”
-Everyone thinks this? How do you know what I am thinking on a peak?
“Depressants like benzos aren't too bad in that they don't give you the urge to continuously pop z-bars or to take another after you have already had two”
-Pill poppers don’t get the urge to continuously take pills? Or take more after the initial dose?
“Alcohol is an exception in that you do keep drinking, sometimes to the point of getting sick. This isn't inherently related to dopamine though because continuous drinking is most likely because of frontal lobe activity depression which would provide you with the ability to reason that if you drink more you will get sick.”
-Why in the world is this the most likely reason you keep drinking? Are you saying that the decision to continue dosing on booze is because your judgment is impaired and you don’t know any better?
“alot of stuff I said is already established and factual”
-what can I say……..??? You are trying to generalize, and it is killing your theory. These systems and our behaviors are very very very complicated.
 
Nice Post, very informative, interesting shit like this is why im changing my major to Psyche...What about Seratonin though? Is it the same principal or not even close?
 
My girlfriend gets nothing out of coke but a nasty drip... and it was good shit both times...
expain that...
 
Guys, he said it himself, it's a THEORY, not the answer to the world's problems, give him a break.
-Astian
 
I said that women's dopamine isn't different from guys, correcting something someone else said. They have the same dopamine as guys and dopamine still has the same properties. The difference apparently, is that the confidence and self-esteem increasing properties of dopamine are more pronounced in women and they react to differently.
MDMA releases serotonin and dopamine.
And (Dr. Quack), don't be so anal about the semantics of my post. If you reread it, you will notice towards the end that I say (basically) if you don't get anything from my post than don't respond.
-Why in the world is this the most likely reason you keep drinking? Are you saying that the decision to continue dosing on booze is because your judgment is impaired and you don’t know any better?
That is exactly what I am saying Quack. Once again from last semester's psych 201 proffessor's mouth. Yes you drink to a certain point because you want to feel drunker. But eventually the frontal lobe is so depressed that you do stupid stuff and cannot reason like a sober person. (Getting in fights over nothing drunk, drinking more even though you have had 12 beers and vomiting is just around the corner, driving home after you are trashed because "I cann dooo itt, I'm finneee."
Anything else?
 
I will stop being anal when you back up what you say with some reference. Making up a theory is one thing, but making up sources of info to back one up is a whole other story. A theroy with out anything to back it up is just a guess. What is the point of a theory if it is not tested? I am sure your pshc teach knows what he/she is talking about, but I am sure there is a lot that they don’t know. Who is the teacher what have they published/researched in the field of addiciton? Researchers don’t clearly understand the mechanism of action that alcohol/MDMA uses to create euphoria so how can you say that people keep consuming it for one reason or another? People overuse drugs for all sorts of reasons. If you are going to start making theories up, consider the possibility that everything you know is wrong. Do you know all of the actions of dopamine? Why does increased dopamine generate reward? Do you know how the endocrine and adrenal systems are involved with DA ? Have you done any cross cultural research to see how different cultures consume the drugs you speak of? What about differences in usage patterns in terms of the age of user? Would you say (based on your theory) that a 90 year old MDMA user would increase dosage in the same way as a sixteen year old in the throws of puberty would? You are trying to tie behavior to neurotransmitters, this is not possible right now. It is misleading to proclaim that that we do. People who know a lot more about this have attempted to do research just like you should..For a lot longer than you have and still have not come near to explaining a question like “how does ethanol work?” Until we have more advanced methods of observing the brain in action, talk like this is cheap……….and we will only be guessing.
[This message has been edited by Dr. Quack (edited 25 June 2001).]
 
He is guessing. So what? You said it yourself that pretty much everyone is at this point. Its a Theory, he is backing it up with information that knows, sure he might not know everything, but who does? I think that Abra did I pretty good job assembling that THEORY, so give him a break!
 
"making up sources of info to back one up.."
Did I do this?
"(actually, alot of stuff I said is already established and factual so it isn't much of a theory and if it was, it wouldn't really be mine) "
This is what I said in my original post in case you missed it.
No where did I say that I am trying to create the Grand Unified Theory of Human Life. I was just sharing my thoughts for what they are worth (obviously more to some than others). And in case you missed the punchline, I entitled this thread "My Dopamine Theory" half jokingly. Obviously only scientists and professors make theories. I wouldn't bet my reputation on hardly anything I said. No I don't know why you do or do not use drugs (I cannot explain how every microscopic human process invovled adds up to a pleasant experience and motivates you to repeat. The things you somehow deduced that I was trying to prove are largely unprovable. If you create a good experiment that is valid and reliable than you can say that this causes that. Anything less is at best a correlation between two events.
And once again for the hearing (reading) impaired, these are just my thoughts and any <productive> discussion would be quite appreciated.
 
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