--- book_note: category: Psychology cover_url: https://books.google.com/books/content?id=sULTwQEACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&source=gbs_api finish_read_date: isbn10: 1948836580 isbn13: 9781948836586 my_rate: publish_date: 2019 publisher: BenBella Books start_read_date: Status: title: The Molecule of More author: Daniel Z. Lieberman, Michael E. Long total_page: 240 --- **Title:** The Molecule of More **Author:** "Daniel Z. Lieberman", "Michael E. Long" **Type:** #litnote #book #todevelop --- The book answers Why do we crave what we don’t have rather than feel good about what we do—and why do fools fall in love? Haunting questions of human biology are answered by The Molecule of More, a must-read about the human condition itself. Looking up and down. When you look down, everything will be within your reach. But if you look up, you have to plan, think or at least work a little to reach them. The down world is managed by neurotransmitters in brain called Here & Now Chemicals. It allows you to enjoy the whats infront of you. The up world is managed by the chemical in brain called dopamine. It makes you desire things that you don't have yet and drives you to seek new things. It rewards you if you obey it. It makes you suffer when you don't. This up chemical is the key to addiction as well as the path to recovery. Dopamine is the reason why we seek and succeed. It is the reason why we discover and prosper. It is the same reason why we can't be happy for a long time. Its both a blessing and curse. The brain is complex. It is not easy to simplify the model of brain. Science is messy. Studies contradict one another. # Dopamine Dopamine is created by the 0.0005% of the brain cells. Yet it exerts an outsized influence on human behaviors. # Dopamine is not a pleasure hormone Dopamine was discovered as a pleasure molecule. But it isn't about pleasure at all. Dopamine delivers a feeling much more influential. The answer to this is found in the monkey and a light bulb experiment done by Wolfram Schultz. He implanted electrodes on the brain of monkeys and placed them in a box that had two light bulbs and box. Every once in a while the light bulb would turn on. One light bulb suggested that the food was on the right box and another signaled the food was on the left box. It took sometime for the monkey to figure out the pattern. At first, they randomly opened the boxes and got it right half of the time. And when the found the food in the box, the dopamine circuits fired in their brain. After they figured out the rule, something strange happened. They reached for the correct food containing box everytime. And the timing of dopamine release shifted from firing at the discovery of food to firing at the light. For the monkeys, seeing the food was unexpected at first. But as they figured out the rule, seeing the light go on was unexpected. The surprise they fell came from the light instead of food. This experiment lead to the arousal of new hypothesis: Dopamine is not the pleasure hormone. It is a reaction to the unexpected- the possibility and anticipation. Dopamine is triggered by the thrill of the unexpected good news. But the thrill doesn't last forever, because the future becomes the present eventually. --- # Dopamine for Love Just like any other things, the thrill of relationship is no different. People with high level of dopamine want to climb, explore, and conquer. Being in love for the first time takes you on a beautiful trip but always leaves you where you began. But once the love fantasy becomes your reality, the dopamine shuts down. Dopamine steers things in your life, especially when it comes to sex. # The Dark Side to Dopamine If you drop a pellet of food into a rat's cage, the rat will experience a dopamine surge. But keep doing it every 5 minutes, dopamine stops. Because there is no error in rats prediction of reward. # Dopamine cares about getting things not enjoying them Dopamine makes you want a house. If you live in a house, it makes you want a castle. And this goes on and on. The motto of dopamine is 'more'. Unlike the H&N hormones(serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins), the molecules functions for tomorrow. Dopamine paints a picture in our minds of a rosy feature. When we are enjoying the present, the dopamine is suppressed. And when the dopamine circuits are activated, the H&NS and suppressed. H&Ns helps us experience reality, dopamine floats above reality. ## Wanting something vs liking something Everything we do ultimately, is for the sake of happiness. We want to rational in our choices but our brains don't like that way. Wanting or desire comes from the evolutionary part of the brain. The dopamine circuits evolved to promote behaviors that lead to survival and reproduction. To help us get food, sex, and win competition. When you see donut on a table, dopamine circut is activated not by need, but by presence of something attractive from the evolutionary point of view. The circuit is activated whether you are hungry or not. Its focused on acquiring more of everything. The dopamine says, "Go ahead and eat the donut, even if you’re not hungry. It will increase your chance of staying alive in the future. Who knows when food will be available next?" Because our ancestors died of starvation, it doesn't want us to die. The most important goal for an organism is to survive. And the dopamine circuit is more or less obsessed with doing so. The dopamine system is always scanning the environment. If there is something potentially valuable for our survival, it switches on and sends a message to pay attention. Dopamine doesn't care whether we like something or not. It doesn't care if we need it or not. It will accumulate everything that might help you live. ## Dopamine on drugs When the dopamine overpowers the rational part of the brain, we make choices that we know are not in our best interest. Its as if we have lost our free will by overwhelming urge for immediate pleasure. When you stimulate your dopamine system with addictions, it responds by demanding more stimulation. Whether you are a drug addict, addicted to sext, games or anything else. It's all same. Addiction doesn't mean you lack will power. It occurs when the desire circuit gets into the state of overstimulation. When people lack dopamine in their brains, they become stiff, shaky and move slowly. When the dopamine circuit is overstimulated, it doesn't boost the satisfaction, but only wanting. The chances of people winning a lottery is less than being struck by lightning. Yet, millions of people buy the lottery tickets. ### Dopamine and pornography The fast and instant access to porn has created a world problem. Easy access helps in addiction. Most people get addicted to cigarettes and alcohol than heroin, even when heroin hits the brain in a way more likely to trigger addiction. But cigarettes and alcohol have easy access, its large public health problem.