From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. After all, the food we have is already here, right in front of us. It’s the food that we don’t yet have that could decide whether we live or die. And that’s why dopamine evolved to make us chase our dreams. Kaitlin Luna: Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a biweekly podcast from the American Psychological Association. I'm your host, Kaitlin Luna. The topic for this episode is dopamine. It's known as the chemical of love, sex, creativity and addiction. Dopamine always wants more. It pushes us to achieve greatness but can also lead to our downfall. Our guests for this episode are Dr. Dan Lieberman, professor and vice chair for clinical affairs and department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the George Washington University, and Mike Long, a speech writer, screenwriter and playwright who teaches writing at Georgetown University. They co-wrote a book called The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, Creativity and will determine the fate of the human race. Why are we always hopeful for solutions even in the darkest times—and so good at figuring them out? 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?

Molecule of More By Daniel Z. Lieberman | Used - Wob The Molecule of More By Daniel Z. Lieberman | Used - Wob

Mike Long: Sure, so dopamine is all about the future, making the future better. Maximizing resources. It gives us desire and anticipation. But as Mike pointed out, it makes promises it can't keep. So, for example, you may be wanting a brand-new TV and going on the Internet, getting all excited about that TV. But as soon as you get it, things change because it's gone from the future to the present and dopamine can only process the future. So, what happens is dopamine shuts down, and that's one of the causes of buyer's remorse, which everybody has heard of. And when you said that a moment ago, Dan, I think that's if you're listening to this, you wondering, well, what do you mean by creativity? This is one good way to begin to understand it. Creativity is associating things that have not been commonly associated before.

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Mike Long: That fine line between oh, here, these things and I could put them together into something useful. And here are these things and they're just going to spill out.

molecule of more—dopamine, with Daniel Lieberman, MD, and The molecule of more—dopamine, with Daniel Lieberman, MD, and

Daniel Lieberman: That’s right. We really do have enough. We don't need a new cell phone. We don't need a bigger TV. We should just experience what we have and enjoy it. Daniel Lieberman: Now he sees the pebble, and instead of metaphorically speaking to him, it's really speaking to him. Instead of revealing divinity of the world, it reveals the fact that he himself is God. Now we've tipped over into mental illness, so having a lot of dopamine can be a very good thing — can be a very exciting thing. But, if you have too much, you get a break with reality. 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. DanielLiebermanand Michael Long have pulled off an amazing feat. They have made a biography of a neurotransmitter a riveting read.Once you understand the power and peril of dopamine, you’ll better understand the human condition itself.”Kaitlin Luna: Everything in our body serves a purpose. So, from evolutionary perspective, why does dopamine exist in our brains and are we the only animals who have dopamine? Control dopamine takes the excitement and motivation provided by desire dopamine, evaluates options, selects tools, and plots a strategy to get what it wants. Chapter 7: Harmony...................................................................................................... 283 The book aims to explain the broad, profound influence of the dopamine “pleasure molecule” in everyday life, at cultural branching points in human history, and as a driving force in human evolution. But calling dopamine the pleasure molecule, as it commonly is, is a misnomer, say the authors. From dopamine’s point of view, “it’s not the having that matters. It’s getting something—anything—that’s new.” Daniel Lieberman: Instinctually, what we do is we drive to protect ourselves. And that's something we have no control over. We will swerve into a crowd of people if we think it's going to save her own life and sounded decision, we make. But with self-driving cars, that becomes a decision we need to make as we program it. And it's a very difficult decision, and nobody's talking about it too much.