So what's happening in addiction ? Well , addiction involves dopamine among other things , often the opioid system , et cetera . But if we were to think about what's the stimulus in an addiction and what's the peak in dopamine ?
The same is also true for things like methamphetamine or cocaine or other types of substance addictions . And the same is also true for a lot of behavioral or what are sometimes called process addictions , things like sex addiction or video game addiction or any type of behavior that frankly is leveraging the dopamine system . But that engages this progressive narrowing of the things that bring someone pleasure such that nothing else is really salient .
By the way , I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already . It's a fascinating uh exploration into dopamine as it relates to addiction , not just drug addiction but other types of addiction . Again , the name of that book is dopamine nation .
Well , addiction involves dopamine among other things , often the opioid system , et cetera . But if we were to think about what's the stimulus in an addiction and what's the peak in dopamine ? And then what happens after that peak ?
It is both the duration between desire and effect . And when I say effect , I mean , the rewarding properties of dopamine that are experienced that's important . So very short gaps teach the system to expect and want short gaps makes it very hard to pursue things that take longer .
