Kaitlin Luna: Okay, so that could be something like a job or a hobby or to something immersion? Yeah, something where something you're immersed in. Kaitlin Luna: And can you increase or decrease the amount of dopamine you have? I mean, you said a lot of is determined by genetics, and I'm thinking, not a person who's affected by a serious mental illness, but for a general person, can you increase that? Daniel Lieberman: Really dopamine is the essence of addiction. Any drug that's potentially addictive is going to cause the release of dopamine, the activity of dopamine in that desire circuit. And conversely, any substance which causes this dopamine activity is going to be addictive. There's a lot of debate, some time ago, about whether or not marijuana could be addictive. It can. And now that we're seeing these very high, potent strains available, we are finding people who are losing control of their marijuana use but opioids, cocaine, this causes a lot more dopamine release. And so, these are extremely addictive. There are certain behaviors that caused dopamine release that also can get out of control. I don't think there's if there's a consensus yet about whether we're going to call it addiction, but things like video games, consuming pornography, these are things that look very much like addiction.

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Daniel Lieberman: They do. Parkinson's disease is also an illness of too little dopamine, and we prescribed dopaminergic drugs to treat that, too. And in our book, we mentioned how that that could be very effective for Parkinson's symptoms. But, it can also get people into trouble. Daniel Lieberman: Yes, that's right. You know, in the old days, we used to think about addiction as physical dependence, that is, that somebody would get tolerance. They need more and more to get the same effect, or they'd have withdrawal if they stopped using it. And so, we used to treat addiction through detoxification. We thought if we could get all the drug out of the body, send them out clean and sober, they'd have a fresh start and it did not work. Daniel Z. Lieberman, M.D. is professor and vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University. Dr. Lieberman is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a recipient of the Caron Foundation Research Award, and he has published over 50 scientific reports on behavioral science. He has provided insight on psychiatric issues for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Commerce, and the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy, and has discussed mental health in interviews on CNN, C-SPAN, and PBS. Dr. Lieberman studied the Great Books at St. John's College. He received his medical degree and completed his psychiatric training at New York University. So, I think that knowing and being able to recognize when your dopamine circuits active, when they're here on now, circuits active and is this really the way you want to behave? That's what's going to empower you. Kaitlin Luna: Yes, something about inspiration. Yeah, you’re talking about, you know, this dopamine can help with inspiration. You said making connections.The left calls themselves progressives. Instead of progress, they want to make the world a better place. Ah, and that's maximizing future resources. And so, they're interested in things like taking control, helping people to live healthier, longer lives by making it difficult for them to access unhealthy food or tobacco or alcohol or things like that. And so, they're very much about taking control of things to maximize the goodness. Mike Long: It's so important, and I say that I'm projecting it onto other people, I know. But, as I learned this material, it was, again, just such a revelation for me to see that when you talk about love, you're talking about two very different things. You're talking about the romantic phase, the passionate phase, and then you're talking about the companion phase. And there are those of us who never escape the romantic phase, which sounds kind of exciting until you think about what that really means. You listen to the song that was number one before “Good Vibrations” and then listen to “Good Vibrations.” The one before was a song called “Winchester Cathedral,” which was the epitome of grocery store music. Mike Long: Profound implications for drone warfare. How do you program the machine if you're going to be purely utilitarian? The answer’s easy, but then you have to deal with the aftermath. There was even a film about. I'm sorry. I forget the name. We talk about it in the book. This really is a problem today, and it has to be answered one way or the other. There's no middle ground here. Daniel Lieberman: Yes, that's right. It increases the amount of dopamine that's active at any given point in time. But that's basically by ferrying it from an inactive place to intact place.

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So, it's just fascinating experiment in which they surveyed people about their political ideology, and they randomize them. In one, they put a hand sanitizer dispenser in the room as a very subtle reminder of the risk of infection. This simple presence of the hand sanitizer pushed people to be more conservative in their answers to the survey. Daniel Lieberman: No, it’s not. It might influence your dopamine a tiny bit, but probably not enough to have an effect on you. Kaitlin Luna: I want to touch on what you mentioned about addiction. So, addictions we’re hearing about this all the time now, especially with hard drugs like opioids, it's part of our national conversation. Many people obviously today are addicted to drugs. And what role does dopamine play in addiction and his or what has been the research in this area about dopamine?

Kaitlin Luna: Happy to have you on the show. So, I'm sure many of our listeners have heard of dopamine but may not know exactly what it is and exactly what it does. So, Dr. Lieberman, can you start off with a very basic question. What exactly is dopamine? There's also examples, though, of people developing artistic and poetic talent as a result of getting these dopamine boosting drugs. How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race

The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain

The other way we spend our time is anticipating, planning, looking forward to thinking about things that have yet to occur. And that's a different kind of pleasure. And a dopamine is the conductor of that pleasure. And once you begin to divide the world, divide your experience, divide your personal experiences into those two categories, dopamine’s, dopamine’s roll rises to the fore — becomes obvious that there are different ways we move through the day and different reasons we are motivated. Some are more motivated by things in the future. Things they’re working toward. Some are motivated by how beautiful this is or what the experience is like, and they're very different things. Kaitlin Luna: Interesting, ethical, you know, as we were more removed by using technology, some interesting ethical issues that come into play. But, yeah, you mentioned about winning. So, you're mourning and morality. I think that leads me to my next question about politics. So, how is dopamine involved in politics? And does it affect whether we're liberal, conservative or moderate?Kaitlin Luna: And moving on to creativity, which is always a fun topic to talk about. So, what is the role of dopamine in creative behavior? And what meant just before I mentioned that to you talked about how creativity madness are more related than each is to a. ordinary brain. Can you talk a little more about that? It describes the fact that the initial buzz of something exciting doesn’t last and this is due to the effect of the molecule receding. Something else is needed to maintain the initial excitement, whether that be love at first sight, the taste of a new food, or the buzz you get when you produce your first music single or work of art. So, the question is, is it ethically permissible to pull the switch to save five lives at the expense of one?

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Basically, what it does is it orients us towards relationships. It's been administered into an easily in experiments, and it makes people have warm feelings, close feelings, two people that they count as part of their group. That's something that can last. Kaitlin Luna: So, it's not like the non sequiturs. That's just someone not completely making sense. Kaitlin Luna: This is probably something that studied in psychiatry a lot are, you know, in the medical field?

Kaitlin Luna: Okay, because I read an article that said you can eat more protein, exercise and sleep more. Is that even true? Daniel Lieberman: There are case reports of people who have been completely absent from sex their entire life. They're treated with these drugs, and all of a sudden, they become compulsively sexual. Kaitlin Luna: And you're talking about achievement with dopamine. How it helps us push us to this next level. So, what is the role of dopamine in making it successful? So, I want to talk about how it makes a successful and also how can make us, you know, lie, cheat, steal and do all sorts of bad things, you know, commit an act of violence? Now, with schizophrenia, we flip the equation. You've, you've got the dopamine circuit going off at inappropriate times. That's what that means is that you may see something that's completely neutral. Your dopamine circuit goes off and you develop the mistaken belief that it's about you. You're watching TV, and some radio or TV announcer is talking about some CIA spying program. All of a sudden, your dopamine circuit goes off for no reason. And you developed the idea that the CIA is spying on you. Kaitlin Luna: So, you’re talking about animals. So, with it was something like a distant relative of ours, like a primate, have dopamine and with something simple, like an earth room have dopamine?