Misunderstanding dopamine: Why the language of addiction matters | Cyrus McCandless | TEDxPortsmouth

Dopamine is the star of our conversations about motivation and addiction. But journalists, marketers, and app developers alike have missed some critical details. Understanding how dopamine really works to motivate our everyday behaviors--and what goes wrong in drug addiction--is the key to more productive thinking about our 'bad habits,' as well as today's opioid crisis.

Since 1992, Dr. Cyrus H. McCandless has specialized in Neuroethology—the study of brain activity during natural behavior and stimulation—with a focus on motivation, goal-directed behavior, navigation and spatial orientation, psycholinguistics, behavioral economics, and decision-making. He's conducted extensive investigations of the networks underlying the structure and causes of behavior and cognition, from neurophysiological studies in awake behaving rats to non-invasive brain imaging in humans, and is the recipient of four competitive federal awards to support his research. Since 2007, he's led comprehensive, multimodal consumer research initiatives for more than 100 household names, and cutting-edge research into the neural bases of narrative comprehension and persuasion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA). Dr. McCandless holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Chicago, where he continued as a Graduate Student at Large prior to conducting primate research at The National Institutes of Health's Laboratory of Comparative Ethology. He earned his MS in Neuroscience and PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Pittsburgh, and Certification in Cognitive Neuroscience from the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition; the National Science Foundation’s Center of Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

[otisobl]

From a psychologist working with addicts: while not easy to understand, this is a hugely important talk that needs way more exposure.

[bangtanx]

This makes me infinitely prouder of anybody who beat a drug addiction or is even trying to.

[Tika]

This was what I suspected and it's great to know the research backs it up. I was thinking about how people's reasons for taking substances can be very different, even for the same drugs, and I figured dopamine was involved. I've noticed some of my friends are sensation-seeking type people, and some are more sensation-avoiding. With ADHD and its improperly regulated dopamine, I find myself as the seeking type. My sister, however, is a long-term addict and sensation-avoiding (avoiding emotions, memories of trauma, etc.).
My mom has a misconception that my sister seeks drugs because they're pleasurable and buzzy, which causes her to grossly oversimply addiction. She can't understand how my sister can't stop, but what I've been trying to explain is that even though pleasure-seeking is how *we* experience drugs, people with hardcore addiction like my sister wouldn't uproot their whole lives if this was just about "liking" something. My observation is that most hardcore addicts have at least some aspect of self-medicating away unpleasant sensations, not just seeking buzzy ones.

[MomsLettingGo]

YES! We can NOT punish the pain out of people. It doesn't work. Thank you for speaking out. I shared this in my support groups today. Families need to understand this so they unlearn the stigmas that keep them angry and unforgiving of our loved ones who can NOT just stop. You explain it well. Thank you for all the work you do in this space.

[Kevinswope]

so im addicted to meth. and as far as i know, im a good man at heart and im not a criminal but i am struggling. and have been for 15years. give this guy an award for stating the most important perspective on reality i live in. i dont want to be doing this to myself, but its still constant

[TwiztedHumor]

Finally some uncommon sense. Thank you!

[Jill-vrfj]

So enlightening. Thank you.
And such a better way of looking at addiction rather than the person is a failure, weak, and should be ashamed of themselves. Now if we could only change our judicial system to see addiction this way

[Terra]

Imagine putting people in prison for being addicted to something.

[dreamingone]

"We" won't ever stop addiction. "We" don't want that. The only thing that matters is the money. Everything is aligned perfectly to continue chasing this goal. Good luck out there.

[catherinegirard]

Thank you for this piece of information! It helped me understand a little more my addiction. 🙏

[kupamanduka]

"Addicts want the drug far more than you can ever want your Iphone or Facebook. It's not because they like the drugs it's because when they take those big doses of drugs, those doses of drugs are teaching their brain to seek out more and more drugs no matter the cost"

Wanting vs liking explained perfectly and how wanting does not mean liking.

[CuriousEarthMan]

I'd like to hear more of this. I'm not saying I got a surprisingly good feeling from this and I want more of that feeling.

[Iamlearningtolove]

God bless you and people like you who are opening doors that will create real and lasting change for so many people who deserve a fair, fighting chance at life. Thank you so very much for your work.

[mr]

Very concise and informational. The easy to understand visuals really leveraged the impact of his powerful points. Thank-you.

[dualapeepa]

This was really interesting, there is still so much stigma around addiction that it makes it so much harder to get help, there's other people (random Karen's) who suddenly think it's in their place to tell you what a failure you are- just because you made a mistake.

[samanthabarron]

I would like to start a conversation about the stigma surrounding prescribing stimulant medications to individuals suffering from Methamphetamine addiction, particularly those self-medicating ADHD symptoms. We have Methadone and Suboxone as medically assisted treatments, so why are we so opposed to prescribing Adderall to someone who needed it to begin with for their dopamine deficiency? I’ve seen countless lives ruined and I can’t help but wonder if a proper prescription would have helped wean them off this terribly addictive street drug.

[just_bee]

after 3 decades as an addict who is finding freedom slowly but surely, I would rather say that it's both a moral and biological crisis at the same time

[letsRegulateSociopaths]

The human experience is wild. Truly excellent talk. Why don't more people know this? Guessing it's because of money one way or another... Addicts are easy to take advantage of and America loves that...

[voteforhamsandwich]

1:55 - i am addicted to my phone, i also am severely addicted to alcohol. I was also addicted to nicotine. And i can confirm, drug addiction and phone addiction IS THE SAME THING. I can't control any of it, feel torture when abstaining, they use the SAME mechanism

[calmnessmind]

Thank you for the enlightenment on that subject.