DRUGSreward fails to materialize, the dopamine firing rate drops to zero, and
that feels terrible.
That’s why a dopamine shutdown makes you feel resentful and
deprived. It’s how a recovering drug addict feels every day as he strug-
gles to get clean and sober. It takes an enormous amount of strength,
determination, and support to overcome addiction. Don’t mess with
dopamine. It hits back hard.
DESIRE IS PERSISTENT, BUT HAPPINESS IS FLEETINGGiving in to craving doesn’t necessarily lead to pleasure because want-
ing is different from liking. Dopamine makes promises that it is in no
position to keep. “If you buy these shoes, your life will change,” says
the desire circuit, and it just might happen, but not because dopamine
made you feel it.
Dr. Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at
the University of Michigan, is a pioneering figure in the process of
disentangling dopamine desire circuits from here-and-now liking cir-
cuits. He found that when a rat tastes a sugar solution, it signals liking
by licking its lips. In contrast, it expresses wanting by consuming more
of the sweet liquid. When he injected a chemical into a rat’s brain that
boosted dopamine, it consumed more sugar water, but didn’t show any
increased signs of liking. On the other hand, when he injected an H&N
booster, he was able to triple the lip-smacking liking response. All of a
sudden the sugar water became far more delicious.
In an interview with The Economist, Dr. Berridge noted that the
dopamine desire system is powerful and highly influential in the brain,
whereas the liking circuit is tiny, fragile, and much harder to trigger.
The difference between the two is the reason that “life’s intense plea-
sures are less frequent and less sustained than intense desire.”
Liking involves different circuits in the brain, and uses the H&N
chemicals, not dopamine, to send messages. In particular, liking relies
on the same chemicals that promote the long-term satisfaction of com-
panionate love: endorphins and endocannabinoids. Because opioid