Dopamine: The Function, Meaning, and Side Effects of Neurotransmitters

By Mark Daily

This is a 2-book combo, which has the following titles:



Book 1: What is dopamine? And how does it work?


Dopamine has been the topic of many debates and discussions among neuroscientists, clinicians, and analysts. It has been controversial and fascinating at the same time. Dopamine seems to give us motivation to succeed, to exercise, to seek rewards, to survive, and to procreate. It rewards us when we follow our instincts and can be the source of addictive behavior. People with ADHD have special challenges regarding dopamine fluctuation and appear to frequently suffer from a deficiency or overdose. Thus, regulating such dopamine levels is crucial to one’s satisfaction and happiness in life.



Book 2: Dopamine makes us human. It has been proven over and over again that it manifests itself differently in animals. It has been researched and been found identical to human traits and our motivation to do anything in life, our creativity, and our problem-solving skills.
Dopamine is also a drug, a neurotransmitter our brains release and cause us to become dependent on substances, porn, attention, entertainment, or other pleasurable things in life.


In this guide, we will go over some of the great opportunities and dangers of dopamine. We will discuss the difference between the left and right brain, and the most common differences between dopamine in the female and male brain. Last but not least, we will share some thoughts about achieving goals and its relationship to dopamine triggers.


All of these topics can give you greater insight in your own psyche as well as others. Please take a look inside or listen to the audio version of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anonymous
• Release date: Nov 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9791220218221

Book preview

Connection

Chapter 1: What Is Dopamine?

What is the definition of dopamine? What does it do and in what way? These kinds of questions have caused debate in neuroscience for a long time. A new study from the U.K. could have some of the answers.

The word dopamine means very different things to different people. From drug addiction to Parkinson's illness to a Hollywood film, dopamine is a part of mainstream culture and also an enduringly interesting research subject in neuroscience. It has been part of over 110,000 research documents in the last 60 years but is still a source of controversy amongst neuroscientists. Attempting to sum up the function of dopamine in a brief chapter or book isn't going to be simple. I am going to leave a lot of research researchers dissatisfied and some totally mad!

Let's start with the basics. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, one of those chemicals that is accountable for transferring signals between the afferent neuron (neurons) of the brain. Really few nerve cells actually make dopamine. Some, in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra, are the cells that die during Parkinson's disease. The functions of others, situated in a part of the brain called the forward tegmental area (VTA), are less well defined and are the major source of the previously mentioned debate, which is my entire focus as well. When dopamine neurons end up being activated, they release dopamine.

One of the best-described roles for VTA dopamine nerve cells is in learning more about benefits. VTA dopamine neurons become triggered when something good happens all of a sudden, such as the unexpected accessibility of food. Most mistreated drugs cause the release of dopamine and this is thought to add to their addicting properties.

However what about bad things? Do they trigger dopamine nerve cells? It's maybe even more crucial to learn when something bad is going to happen than when something good is; with predators or illness you typically do not get a second chance. Is dopamine associated with learning more about bad things? Herein lies some of the debate surrounding dopamine. Not all the nerve cells in the VTA make dopamine. Most research studies had suggested that the unexpected discussion of aversive or noxious stimuli like pain triggered the activation of some nerve cells in the forward tegmental area, but were these dopamine nerve cells?

In 2004 Mark Ungless and coworkers at the University of Oxford published a paper in the diary Science suggesting that dopamine nerve cells were widely inhibited by aversive events. They used a painstakingly detailed approach to determine those nerve cells that were triggered or prevented by aversive stimuli and after that biochemically evaluated those neurons to determine if they truly were dopamine neurons. They did find that some nerve cells became triggered by aversive stimuli, but these neurons did not make dopamine.

The findings were really clear but were controversial. They did not agree with other research studies on the role of dopamine, which includes some which revealed that treatment with drugs that block the action of dopamine could block discovering aversive events. Moreover, chemical measurements showed that dopamine was released by animals undergoing a difficult experience. If dopamine neurons are not triggered when finding out about aversive events, how is this dopamine being released? and why would blocking the impacts of dopamine prevent learning about aversive events?

Ungless and co., now at the United Kingdom Medical Science Research Study Council, Imperial College, London, hypothesized that the devil may be in the detail; maybe the VTA is not a single, uniform part of the brain but is made up of functionally different subregions. Before performing their newest study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they returned and looked again at the literature about dopamine nerve cells in the forward tegmental area. They