Dopamine, explained

Dopamine detoxing, hacking, and fasting: Is any of it real?

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May 22, 2024, Vox

Dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain, used to be neuroscience jargon — something you’d read about in a biology textbook. But today, dopamine has become a cultural catch-all, shorthand for focus, yearning, and joy.

Scroll through TikTok or sit next to a Silicon Valley software engineer at a dinner party, and you’ll be bombarded with dopamine-related life hacks. Struggling to stay off your phone? Maybe you’re due for a dopamine detox. Concerned that you’re not enjoying life like you used to? Try dopamine fasting or, for a quick pick-me-up, get dopamine dressed.

Wanting to hack your brain isn’t some niche thing. Celebrity neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman’s 2021 “Dopamine Masterclass” episode, “Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction,” has racked up over 9 million views on YouTube — a staggering number for a 136-minute neuroscience explainer. This video and others like it offer techniques for controlling dopamine release. Some are behavioral, like quitting sugar or abstaining from pornography. Others involve buying supplements, phone apps, or life coaching.

But in reality, dopamine does both more and less than pop culture gives it credit for. While dopamine-driven wellness trends often hinge on its role as “the pleasure molecule,” most neuroscientists today agree that dopamine doesn’t represent pleasure at all — at least not directly. Its role in the brain is wide-reaching and nuanced, shaping everything from motivation to nausea. Outside of the brain, it helps to widen blood vessels, lower white blood cell activity, and more. Even plants make dopamine!

At t same time, dopamine doesn’t singularly drive our productivity, our mood… or anything, really. Silicon Valley optimization evangelists say that if we can hack our dopamine systems, we can maximize productivity. This both oversimplifies the vast complexity of human brain chemistry, and overstates our capacity to optimize consciousness.

“People like Andrew Huberman are taking the incredible things we’ve learned and using them for marketing,” said Nandakumar Narayanan, associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa.

There are nuggets of truth buried in the deluge of dopamine-obsessed trends, but its precise function is still a hot area of active research. Dopamine’s evolution from humble neurotransmitter to cultural icon says more about our collective desire to regain control of our impulses than it does about the chemical itself. Here’s what we actually know — and don’t know — about dopamine, and how to separate helpful advice from pseudoscientific hype.

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