Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

to suggest that dopamine is heavily involved in motivation and habit formation, which are easily linked to addiction.

This is a great, succinct summary of (some of) dopamines role (from our limited understanding) in the brain.

It’s complex, but based on the tools we have to manipulate and measure dopamine, it’s a part of addiction but it doesn’t explain everything.

And dopamine plays an important role in other functions like movement (I.e. Parkinson’s disease).



In the jargon of the field, it's neccessary but maybe not sufficient. Anyway, dopaminergic firing in the ventral palidum does code for anticipated reward and incentive salience. It's just that dopamine has nothing to do with actual pleasure or enjoyment (that'd be the lateral shell of the nucleus accumbens and glutamate firing). Dopaminergic populations are prediction and addiction.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: