As stated in the other post, this article mischaracterizes the findings. No one thought dopamine flooded the brain. This finding is important because it's the first time we've been able to visually see the behavior we thought was happening.
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Dopamine doesn’t flood the brain as once believed – it fires in exact, ultra-fast bursts that target specific neurons.
Thank you. Almost every word of the sentence above is very much not what college freshmen have been taught for 30+ years. Dopamine was never thought to "flood the brain." For a few decades it's been understood to have highly targeted action, restricted by various factors not least of which is the fact that dopamine is only produced in/near certain synapses.
Straw men are sometimes the most annoying men.
Wow so really using certain medications to flood the brain is like using a bazooka vs how dopamine is meant to be more precisely distributed.
Yes, that's always been more or less the case. However, the brain's uptake/use of neurotransmitters like Dopamine has been understood for decades to have at least some specificity to it. We always knew we were shooting flies with shotguns, though.
We don't have many legitimate medications that would do what you're saying.
Exactly! People will look back at us akin to how we look at people who were given cocaine for a sore throat years ago
Please share with the class what medication you're vaguely alluding to
Probably amphetamines, people love to shit on amphetamines when it comes to their use in treatment of ADHD. Most of that criticism comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of both chemistry and biology.
Agreed. It's eugenics when you hammer down into it.
Hell, mine hasn't worked like it's "supposed to" for, like, ever, AFAIK. So, eh. 🤷🏼♂️
The only thing surprising here is that people thought it worked any other way to begin with. Given that it's a reinforcement mechanism then it makes sense that it would be both spatially and temporally discrete.
And that's how it's been understood for decades. The article creates a silly and false premise.
science reporting continues to be garbage