How Dopamine Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. [Music]. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too The Three Amigos back together again. after some massively triumphant live. shows yeah we did our little Northeast. spring swing yeah and it was great it. was a good show.

which. one the the podcast topic that we did. that we did live oh I got that we're. doing all year I got you it was pretty. good I love that that topic that's what. you call an on seitter but it does feel. good to be back doesn't it back in the. studio back doing what we born to. do I kind of prefer on stage but sure. this is great too do you you like the. The Thrill of the audience the Roar of. the crowd that bowl running at you yeah. nice.

um I like it too sometimes when I'm not. totally terrified because I drank too. much energy drinks well I wonder if your. dopamine receptors are functioning as. they should yeah that's a great question. Chuck um and that's a wonderful segue. too because it just so happens that. today the topic of this episode is. dopamine and there's probably no more. misunderstood neurochemical certainly. neurochemical maybe substance in your. body at all than dopamine we we used to.

think we had a really great handle on. dopamine and what it does and how it. works and it turns out that we are every. at every turn a new study comes along. that says nope we're wrong yep we're. wrong about that what about yep wrong. about that basically everything we know. in popular culture and I mean if you. even gone to like Cleveland Clinic. website or we WebMD website or Harvard. Health has some articles you'll see this. old Antiquated outdated view of what. dopamine is being kind of paraded around.

the idea that it's a a pleasure inducing. chemical that if something gives you. pleasure you're you're responding to a. hit of dopamine and that is just. absolutely not true yeah and this this. may be the most of covered stuff you. should know thing that hasn't gotten its. own title yet yeah man that dopamine is. is the raining champ right now yeah we. talk about this stuff all the time it. seems like um yeah we do because comes.

up a lot and the reason why is because. it turns out it has a lot to do with. with more than just pleasure like like. everybody yes it is associated with. pleasure just not the way we've thought. for very long and it does a lot of other. stuff too essentially what it does is it. signals things it says hey you you. behave or you act up you stop behaving. something like that I'm not quite sure. exactly what it says I don't speak. dopamine but it's a neurotransmitter so. it's a chemical messenger in the brain. at base but it's associated with so many.

different things that of course dopamine. comes up all the time in our our. podcast it sure does so uh it is like. you said a neurotransmitter one of more. than a hundred of those bad boys uh. functioning in our bodies and it like. you said it lets things. communicate uh it's a a. facilitator um but it's it gets all the. press for its um you know like the the. Feelgood stuff that you mentioned um.

addiction behaviors whether it's. gambling or drugs or or the thrill of uh. you know those people that walk around. on Ledges and stuff ledge Walkers yeah. ledge. Walkers uh but it does all kinds of. things that's just the where it makes. the the newspaper headlines right um but. we should probably talk a little bit. about just the. neurotransmitter cycle that it goes. through sure.

so the whole thing starts it turns out. that dopamine is used throughout the. body but the the it in for the most part. it's used in the brain the problem is is. if you like had a big handful of. dopamine and you just shoved it in your. mouth it couldn't make it into your. brain for use it can't cross the bloodb. brain barrier in other words fortunately. the thing that makes dopamine up its. essential ingredient tyrosine an amino. acid can cross the blood brain barrier. and when it gets there it gets um a big.

fat hug from something called tyrosine. hydroxylase and that converts it into. dopamine and all of a sudden your. brain's like yes let's go that's right. and we've known about it a long time. it's been around a long time it is not. exclusive to human beings no that's a. big one uh yeah it's in all all kinds of. animals um but we are really um kind of. great at making it.

and I was about to say hooked on it but. that implies the hold addiction thing. and I don't want to go down that road. but uh humans love the stuff and we. produce about three times as much as. other primates do yes and in fact Emily. Deans uh wrote a a article in 2011 I. think in psychology today she's an. evolutionary psychiatrist and she said. that dopamine is what made hum so. successful and from what I can tell the. latest research about dopamine is that.

it essentially is what allows us to. learn about the world around us we make. connections that collectively form our. mental map of the world of how we're to. behave around other people of how we do. things like go get food like that. dopamine is somehow behind all of it and. that because we're so um responsive to. dopamine and we produce so much dopamine. compared to other animals in the animal. kingdom. um that is conceivably what has allowed.

us to become as successful as we are. compared to other animals is that nuts. like it could all just come down to. dopamine. essentially yeah and opposable thumbs. maybe yeah sure but I mean what are. opposable thumbs if you can't have get. the wherewithal to move. it true but if you had the wherewithal. to move it and you couldn't grab. something the heels of both hands just. like a thumb are you under in the.

opposable thumb yes I'm sick of the. opposable thumb always hog in the. spotlight it's dopamine's. time you can get those removed you know. see how you do I guess I that sounds. like a dare to me Chuck say goodbye to. your tennis game I can play it just by. holding the racket with the both heels. of my hand or I guess we should have. said pickle ball that'd be more current. right I don't play pickle ball I haven't. tried it yet I'm I'm I want to though. okay well there's plenty of places and. people to play it with yeah I have found.

no one or no place oh I'm sure somebody. will write in an offer to play with you. of course uh then I go out there and I. like blow my ACL or something oh God. that was nice uh so at the highest level. you know we kind of talked about this a. thousand times before but dopamine um. functions as a neurotransmitter it. enables signals to pass through these. these gaps these synapses and make. connection from neuron to neuron and. that's just sort of the bird's eye view.

but there are all kinds of things that. dopamine does and depending what kinds. of neurons it's talking to and it's. introducing to one another um it's going. to have different effects on the human. body yes so there's D1 to D5 I think uh. types of receptors dopamine receptors um. and four Pathways that they follow and. like you said depending on what receptor. is being activated and what pathway is. being followed but all sorts of.

different stuff can happen um dopamine's. associated with motor control learning. memory Mal functions in it can result in. psychosis um they use dopamine as a. vasos stimulant to treat heart. conditions it has just a cluster of. different effects on the body depending. on where it's being processed like what. pathway it's being processed right and I. think I said there's four of them total. did you want to talk about those I feel. like we should okay the first one is the.

Nigro striatal tract nice uh you. mentioned motor control first and that's. the tract that has to do with motor. control yeah so if if those aren't. working correctly the one the the. dopamine neurons or the dopaminergic. pathway in the Nigro strial tract that. can result in Parkinson's it's very. famously associated with dopamine for. anybody who has read Awakenings or saw. the movie yeah which will probably talk. about a little bit more.

later that movie yeah okay I got a great. great bit up my sleeve okay uh the. second pathway is a meso corticol. pathway that has a lot to do with. executive functioning yeah uh. prioritizing stuff how your brain plans. things how it files away stuff and how. it um you know how it organizes your. overall um sort of priorities yes and. now it's time to talk about the most. random dopam dopaminergic pathway of all.

the tubero and fibular pathway tubero. and. fibular yeah I think you had it right. the first time okay um we'll edit out. the second one then all right we'll put. in a slide whistle over it so that. connects the hypothalamus and the. pituitary gland and it's from what I can. tell I was like well what else does it. do it's sole the sole role of this. pathway is to block the production of. milk or to yes to to prevent the.

production of milk in uh the female. breast of mammals that's what it does. that's that that's that pathway's role. and if you block that pathway the milk. production begins isn't that interesting. yeah we talked about that in the. two-parter the old breastfeeding. two-parter oh we did oh yeah oh I don't. remember that yeah yeah W that's where. it. all no I have a terrible memory I know. you're making fun of me uh there's. there's also the mesolimbic pathway uh.

we've talked a lot about the limic. system in the EP in many episodes but uh. reward and emotion and this is the one. where this is the one that gets all the. Press because this is the one that has. to deal with addiction um and we're. going to talk a lot about reward and how. reward factors into how dopamine works. right this is the reason why some people. get the chemical drawing of the. molecular drawing of dopamine like.

tattooed on their wrist because they're. s so honic and into pleasure that's why. you might see somebody with that because. of that pathway I never heard of that. yeah it's a thing it unfortunately it. turns out to be um a misinterpretation. but it is a thing that people do. sometimes sure so uh you know we talked. about misunderstandings about dopamine. and up until not too long ago we didn't. know a lot about exactly how dopamine.

worked in the body and there was a a. misguided thought that there was. something called volume transmission at. work which was you just sort of uh well. you don't flood we'll talk about you. know artificially flooding dopamine. which is also a problem uh that resulted. from this um misnomer but dopamine just. went very slowly it was not very. specific at all just kind of washed over. the brain and if it made some. connections with various neurons then.

that was kind of the dumb luck of. dopamine cuz dopamine is just Dopey. right here's a great example of just how. wrong we got dopamine it turns out it. the process that dopamine is excreted. and Crosses into the synapse and creates. like an electric electrical Transmission. in the brain is the exact opposite. totally of volume transmission it could. not be more opposite then the idea that. it just floods slowly across the brain. and whatever it runs into it runs into. we found that in milliseconds a precise.

squirt of dopamine hits exactly the. right neuron in exactly the right place. it's right on the money that's how. dopamine is excreted the exact opposite. of volume. transmission yeah and we learned that. not too long ago 2018 uh medical. researchers at at havid released this. paper and said hey guess what everyone. it's the opposite of every everything. you've been saying in every moment oh.

okay sorry about that sure my be so so. um after the dopamine is excreted and it. does its job it actually breaks down. remarkably quickly it turns into. something it's metabolized into. something called homo vanilic acid right. and from what I can tell I don't know. what the homo does to the vanilic acid. but vanilla vanilic acid is the flavor. of vanilla so from what I can tell if. you tasted the the the homo vanilic acid.

which is like the metabolite found in. cerebral spinal fluid that we test to. see how much dopamine you have in your. brain at any given time it may taste. like. vanilla wow isn't that interesting it's. gross it is gross and I don't know also. if we said that just 20,000 neurons are. capable of synthesizing dopamine but. that's a really small proportion of the. total number of neurons we have to about. 100 billion I think yeah absolutely you.

want to take a break yeah we'll break. and we'll talk about well what everyone. wants to hear about which is how. dopamine and pleasure hold hands with. one another. [Music].

so check this whole under I should say. misunderstanding of dopamine as the. ultimate pleasure chemical if you take a. drag off a cigarette if you snort a line. a Coke if if the person you love like. touches your hand um if if you get like. a a from from the teacher like you're. going to get a hit of dopamine and. that's what that's what your reward is. that's it's pretty old it's an old idea.

at least it dates back to the middle of. the 20th century which is we're getting. further and further away from which. makes me gulp um but the the dis that. idea being discredited is pretty old too. like it didn't last very long the. problem is its Legacy stuck around for a. really long time it's still around today. yeah for sure there was a a researcher. speaking of old named James olds uh in. the 50s and 60s who did some experiments. with rats and said hey every time time I.

give these rats a little electrical. stimulation in just the right place. right there behind the ear uh they're. going to keep pulling that lever down or. whatever act I'm making them do that. they'll just do that over and over and. over and over and over as long as I keep. stimulating that area right so what they. said was okay there's something going on. with dopamine in in this this um I guess. pleasurable act that the that the rat is. doing to itself and that got followed up.

in that got followed up in the 70s by a. guy named Roy wise who depleted dopamine. receptors in rats and found that they. would not seek out food and they. wouldn't seek out. methamphetamines that that were just. there on the offer those rats could have. as much meth as they wanted and they. were like nah I don't want any and. crucially critically Roy wise and his. colleagues misinterpreted that as a lack. of experience of pleasure not a lack of. motivation and it wasn't until the 80s.

that some other people came along and. were like no we we've been getting this. wrong all this time yeah in the 80s they. use uh sugar instead of methamphetamine. I guess and once again very kind of cruy. they cut off um they they didn't allow. them any dopamine they killed them off. with drugs but this time they gave them. the sugar and they said um they they're. liking the sugar you can tell by the. look on that little guy's face that he. enjoy it but and this is the keyy it's.

not coming back and saying give me more. sugar give me more sugar right or give. me more. meth. sure so this whole thing this changed. our understanding at least in in the. like Academia among people who study. this kind of thing it we realized we. were misinterpreting what we were seeing. and that um a lack of dopamine didn't. lead to a lack of pleasure called an. aidonia or anhedonia. um it was a lack of motivation to seek.

out that pleasure that's the effect of. not having enough dopamine that we found. from those rat tests so like this whole. new framework of understanding it kind. of came along because to be clear. dopamine is very much associated with. things that give us pleasure and it does. seem like the more pleasurable something. is the more dopamine gets released like. for example I think I saw like eating. something that t tastes really good um.

increases your dopamine levels by 100%. sometimes but cocaine increases your. dopamine levels 10 times that yeah so. the more intense the pleasurable. experiences the more dopamine gets. released so it's definitely associated. with it what they found is like the. dopamine is not making you feel pleasure. there's something else involved it's. just it's never caught with the Smoking. Gun but it's always there when the dead. body's found and it has this mysterious. smile on its face because it knows you.

can't prove anything yeah it's well it's. liking versus wanting and that's a a. theory of reward Behavior where liking. is that that pleasure um that that hit. you get right when you put that bite of. peanut butter pie in your mouth is that. pleasure wanting is the motivation to. earn the reward that you get out of. having that peanut butter pie right um. like you know you're up in the hotel. room they they don't have room service.

but you can get up out of bed and you. can get dressed and you can get down the. stairs cuz the elevator's broken and get. that peanut butter pie if you want to uh. but dopamine isn't enough to motivate. you to get up and go get that peanut. butter pie necessarily even though you. have great great memories of the taste. of it on your tongue and you love that. stuff right but if you do get up and go. get that peanut butter pie that means. that in the past you've had peanut. butter pie or have created an image of.

the peanut butter pie you've never had. that's so great that the dopamine is is. produced in enough amounts to actually. get you up out of bed dressed and going. down the stairs to get that peanut. butter pie they're related in that way. yeah absolutely um so it's not actually. causing the pleasure it's just. influencing how your brain is uh taking. all this stuff in basically and there. are a couple of different ways of. looking at how this happens um there's. one the called a uh that it's prediction.

error so right you get you get more bang. for your buck basically um you you. expected to like that peanut butter pie. but this was the best peanut butter pie. you've ever had maybe the best dessert. you've ever had in your life and you're. like wow that your brain says that was. way way better than I thought it was. going to be so it reinforces it right. and to put it in kind of computational. terms dopamine is a prediction error. somehow that chemical measures the.

difference between what you expected and. the amazing reward you got and the. greater the difference the more. pronounced the connection that dopamine. is going to make between going and. getting peanut butter pie and eating. peanut butter pie so you'll have more. motivation to do it next time yeah uh. the other way of thinking about it is. the the dopamine itself is the. motivational signal so it's what makes. me get out of that bed and put on my. clothes and actually go down those.

stairs because I'm motivated to go get. that that uh reward right and this is. where that Awakenings anecdote comes in. let's hear it so you were talking about. how you know the peanut butter pie. motivating you to get out of bed and. actually go um that definitely jibes. with research particularly um something. reported by Oliver saxs in the book and. then later the movie Awakenings there. was a a an epidemic of something called. en syphilitic.

lethargy uh which is what happened to. Robert Dao's character remember as a boy. he caught this thing and he just kind of. Frozen place it's where you develop. Parkinson's um uh symptoms so much that. you just don't you can't move you don't. you're you're you cannot move you have. you don't have the required dopamine to. actually move so you're just sitting. there Frozen in place like a statue but. anybody who saw this movie remembers. being Amazed by the scene if a certain.

patient is stimulated uh their dopamine. is stimulated just enough they can. actually overcome that being frozen in. place and so there's a famous scene. where um Oliver sax tossed one of the. patients some oranges and she caught. them like she was a Frozen stue and all. of a sudden she's catching oranges and. then juggles with them yeah or there's. another patient that um was on the beach. I believe in their wheelchair saw. someone drowning and was motivated to. get up and go save the person and then.

come back and and go back to this Frozen. statue kind of. stasis great Scene It is so like that. that has to do with the motivational. aspect of dopamine and that given the. right stimulus even something that. tremendous as just just a crazy amount. of Parkinson symptoms can be over. overcome or overwhelmed by that dopamine. hit yeah absolutely and then jumping. back to that first one the um prediction.

error they've done research on people. who gamble who play cards and play the. slot machines and stuff and they their. brains experience uh about the same. amount of dopamine activity when they. almost win like you got that big pot in. the middle of the table you're playing. poker and you lose at the last second uh. your dopamine level will be about the. same as if you had actually won it yes. which is pretty remarkable and then I. think it kind of qualifies as a third.

interpretation um the the most current. study I've seen sees dopamine is. essentially the thing that allows us to. learn if you connect one thing to. another it's because dopamine had you. make that connection and then depending. on what kind of effect those two things. have on you that connection might be. very very strong so you're motivated to. go seek it out again but at base what. dopamine is doing is allowing us to form. con connections imagine the world if we.

didn't connect one thing to another like. if I didn't connect turning on the. computer and stepping up to the. microphone and recording a podcast like. we wouldn't do anything we would just be. completely lost if we couldn't make. connections and it seems like dopamine. is the basis of all that yeah it's. pretty cool like the whole world would. suffer because we wouldn't be podcasting. Chuck well that's. debatable um you know we we're not poo. pooing the idea that uh addiction and.

dopamine are are heavily tied with one. another um we're just sort of trying to. point out that uh there's a lot of other. things at play when it comes to dopamine. and that sort of has um unfairly maybe. gotten all the Press but right we do. have to talk about it some more we. talked about it um plenty of times. certainly in our in our addiction. podcast episodes um but it does play a a. pretty big role in drug abuse and. addiction um it does. reinforce the. the you know the the idea that you want.

to keep using those drugs because it's. making you feel. good and when we're talking about you. know you're talking about the uh the. woman juggling oranges in that movie and. how remarkable that is right if they've. given you Parkinson's drugs and they. just flood your brain with dopamine they. found that 10% of the people that have. had that treatment um turn into gambling. addicts and I would imagine there people. who who already already gambled I don't. think it like drove them to start.

gambling but that just goes to show you. the power of like what a flood of. dopamine will do to your brain and it's. it's pretty it's a pretty clunky way to. to deal with it I think yeah I think. that's what you were referring to. earlier when you were saying like that. understanding of volume. transmission theory of of dopamine. release that's what the drugs are based. on like that understanding or that. misunderstanding and like yeah that's. what happens it's like yes if it does. crawl across the brain and runs into. whatever neurons that it can trigger.

it's going to have all sorts of other. knock on effects yeah. totally so um I guess our current. understanding of how dopamine relates to. addiction is that um it connects drugs. with pleasure and as I was saying before. the more intense The. Experience especially the reward um you. can have a negative experience and I. think they're starting to figure out. dopamine has something to do with that. too. but as far as we.

know the more intense the reward the the. greater the flood of dopamine and so the. greater the the stronger the connection. you make between you know pressing a. lever and a scientist giving you a bunch. of meth yeah absolutely but that is to. be clear just part of the recipe of what. leads to addiction um I don't maybe. there are people out there saying that. but I don't know if anyone really is. saying like it's all because of dopamine. no it is it is part of the recipe in.

addition obviously to your. genetics um just the fact that drugs are. out there and available and their envir. environmental pressures and influences. uh all kinds of reasons that people. start to take drugs or continue to take. drugs and as far as the continuation. dopamine is is definitely a part of it. right and so uh one of the ways that you. learn um to take drugs is not just from.

the the fact that your your brain is. flooded with dopamine which allows you. to make that connection very strongly. but um the brain actually changes in. response to those increased floods of. dopamine because it's not set up to. release dopamine like that repeatedly. over long periods of time it can do it. once in a while yeah but you you you. can't really do it too often because. then the brain responds by shutting down. dopamine receptors the problem is is. that this means that you. have to do more drugs to get that.

sensation as far as you know and that's. what creates the cycle of addiction that. to me smells vaguely of being almost out. of. date yeah I know what you're talking. about but it does make sense then that. the ideal drug would trigger a maximum. release of feel-good. chemicals but a minimum release of. dopamine if anybody could ever come up. with a drug like that people would be. able to do drugs all the time they'd.

never get. addicted sure but you know they have. other negative effects on the body sure. sure can't forget about that yeah yeah. um the other bad thing obviously if. you're going to um do the amount of. drugs it takes to shut down your. dopamine receptors because your body's. like wait wait wait this isn't right let. me shut this down is it's not just. shutting down the dopamine receptor that. makes you want to you know do more. cocaine or whatever it's just shutting. your dopamine receptors down so you.

mentioned it earlier uh anadon that's. the idea that you don't receive pleasure. from any activity and if all of a sudden. your dopamine has been shut down such. because you've been doing drugs that. you're not getting any kind of um. Pleasant feel-good stimulation from life. then that could be another reason that. you up your uh desire to do drugs yeah. and then there's one other factor. involved um that with fewer dopamine. receptor sites um remember you said that.

one of those dopaminergic Pathways is. related to Executive function like. impulse control responsibility that kind. of stuff yeah well with lower levels of. dopamine the theory goes that you are. more likely to engage in Reckless. Behavior to get drugs you might do. things that you normally wouldn't do not. because you're just this this addict who. has to have it but partially also. because you don't have the impulse. control that you did before you became.

addicted to to drugs and your uh. dopamine receptors started shutting down. yeah and I think that's uh I mean we. talked about it in the Addiction app. that's it's not just the effect that the. drug has on your body the the negative. effects that it physiologically has on. your body but the behaviors that you. start engaging in when you're under the. influence of drugs and want more drugs. and maybe can't find the drugs that's. maybe almost worse than the. physiological uh ramifications you know.

oh yeah for sure and it also ties in. with risk-taking because dopamine is. connected to risk-taking and in fact. they found that some people seem to be. biologically uh physiologically. predisposed to risk-taking based on uh. their dopamine levels that in fact they. find that they have fewer what are. called Auto. receptors apparently over time we've. evolved to um create on uh do doine. neural cells a site called an auto.

receptor that actually catches some of. the dopamine it helps regulate it like. it never makes it out so it keeps the. amount of dopamine down to a regulated. level so the fewer Auto receptors you. have if you're still pumping out. dopamine you get a much greater uh. impact from that dopamine and they have. correlated that to risk-taking people. who have fewer dopaminergic Auto. receptors uh take more risks at least. According to some studies yeah and. they've also done study. where um they found that that risk.

should or needs to be tied to a reward. like a gain basically um there was a. study from the University of College uh. in London in 2015 that said subjects. whose dopamine levels uh was higher it. was boosted artificially with medication. um would choose risky options more often. if it involved a potential gain um they. didn't see that same thing going on if. there was a potential loss involved so. there's definitely a tie to um a gain or.

or another way of saying that would be a. reward yes and then also um that impulse. control is also a huge Hallmark of uh. ADHD symptoms and so um ADHD is very. commonly associated with some sort of um. dopamine deficiency and from what I've. seen there isn't a like an across. theboard we haven't discovered some. across theboard type of brain that it's. like yep if you have this brain you have.

ADHD and vice versa um and we're not. even certain exactly what effect the. dopamine is having we're almost just. kind of like seeing. effects uh that that are the behavior of. people with ADHD and saying hey that we. know that dopamine does that or if you. don't have dopamine you're more likely. to do this so there's this correlation. it's just not we it's it's never been. like completely shown yet I think it. probably will be at sometime but we. don't really know how ADHD is linked to.

dopamine but there's we're almost. certain that dopamine drives at least. some of the ADHD symptoms it's just. because of that people have made leaps. in understanding like there's a um. there's a a longstanding myth about. people with ADHD that they do these. impulsive behaviors to get a hit of. dopamine well that's based on that old. idea that dopamine is a a pleasure. producing chemical or a reward producing. and chemical um where instead it might.

be that people do these behaviors that. are impulsive because they don't have. the dopamine that can regulate their. impulses and so they have less impulse. control it's we're just still sorting it. out I guess yeah um all right should we. take our final break here yeah all right. we'll take a break and we'll talk about. oh boy it's going to be so much fun. social media right after this. [Music].

all right so we're back and we promis. talk of social media because I think. everyone it's pretty hip to the the fact. now that um notification and the and the. dings and the likes and the loves and.

the hearts and all the things that come. through various interacting with various. uh social me platforms you just sounded. so old dude I know that's great in this. case I love being old I don't want any. of it I'm with you but in any case all. of that stuff combines um to give you a. hit of dopamine and it's um specific and. you're like fine that's great whatever. but it's specifically structured and. built that way and coded that way so. that you will become addicted to that. social media platform and they have.

admitted as such uh in 2018 it was it. was a big news item when they were uh I. don't know was it like Congressional. testimony or something can't remember. exactly but there was a VP at Facebook. um who came out and was basically like. hey this is uh something we did on. purpose and it was uh a core Foundation. was the really uh the quote that kind of. stuck out with how people behave uh. using our platform like it was a part of.

the the course strategy to get people to. come back again and again and again yeah. and that strategy was based on this was. a chamoth. popedia uh who was a VP of user. development at Facebook and they said. that um this was based on short-term. dopamine driven feedback loops and you. know this is all old news to us now I. mean this was 6 years ago think about. how much our understanding of what. social media does to it but in 2018 that. was a groundbreaking.

admission um but it's true and I mean. that's. essentially how social media works like. you uh get the app and you start to. realize that um if that little like. badge number comes up and says hey you. have like two notifications you go into. it you're going to get some sort of. reward of some sort you're going to like. you said get a ding or a like or a heart. or something like that and that is a. reward to you and so based on the the um. mesolimbic theory of.

dopamine we get a dopamine hit and so we. learn to come back and apparently also. uh Randomness has a lot to do with it. because the as we start to be able to. predict when we'll get a reward that. dopamine um stops being a part of that. whole experience so if it can be done. randomly we don't know when we're going. to get a reward it has a maximum effect. of releasing dopamine in thus teaching. us to go back to social media over and.

over and over again yeah totally um. there's also this psychiatrist Nam Dr. Cameron uh s p ah I guess. sepa is that how you'd say that sepa or. sea okay one of those. three um who came out and said all right. um there's this term that I'm gonna. float out there uh and it's called a a. dopamine fast. and the idea when that was floated was.

people heard that and they said oh well. dopamine just means just uh it's just a. catch-all term basically for for any. sort of uh addictive behavior like. reinforcement and you can go on a. dopamine fast and like you know put that. uh put that social media app down for a. couple of weeks and when you come back. it's just GNA like your brain's going to. have a little rest from that thing and. you're going to feel amazing about how. much you love it when you come back and.

that's not at all what Dr Cameron was. talking about or meant no huh Dr Dr sea. sepa um was basically saying. like like he really misused dopamine. fast and he even said to the New York. Times like I I didn't mean it like that. don't don't take it like that I don't. mean it literally everybody said too. late we're going to take it literally. and so there was a this this movement I. think people still do it of self-denial. of everything from like people stopped. um interacting with other people people.

stopped um eating Foods they found. pleasurable they stopped um talking if. they didn't need to uh anything that. could conceivably give you a release of. dopamine and the whole their their. premise was that if they did that it. would be like going and drying out on. heroin or cocaine so that when you come. back that that first um experience again. with heroin or cocaine is that much more. amazing because you've kind of.

replenished your endoc canabo and. opioids and all that stuff dopamine does. not work like that if you stop um. flooding your brain with dopamine it. doesn't replenish it doesn't need to. replenish it's not how it works but. that's what people were doing they just. completely misinterpreted it and it was. based on faulty science and Dr sepa. essentially using the wrong. term yeah I think the idea that he was. talking about was hey. put that stuff down and go do other.

things that you find pleasure in right. uh live in the world or go out in nature. or you know kind of um get a hold of. your life again so you don't feel like. you're you know tied to this social. media app for your happiness yeah our. moms used to call it going to play. outside for a while right or summer I. think is another term it used to be. called but instead this guy called it a. dopamine fast and people really took a. left turn with it so he identified six.

compulsive behaviors or categories that. he was saying you could really you could. really do a good for yourself by taking. a a dopamine fast or break from. emotional eating excessive internet. usage and gaming gambling and shopping. porn and masturbation thrill and Novelty. seeking which I took to mean taking a. break from Thrill Kill murder spree. right and recreational drugs yeah but he. also said you know anything that you.

feel like is got a hold on your life if. you just stop and step away from it it. will have less a hole of your life so TV. would definitely be in there probably. for a lot of people yeah but if you step. back and look at what this guy's talking. about it's the most basic thing that. people have been doing for eons and yet. just by slapping U dopamine fast on it. it became sticky and Buzzy and brain. stormy or Java stormy and like super.

corporate and people just really got. into it and started thinking like you. know if I if I fast from dopamine when I. come back I'm going to have so much. dopamine that I'm going to be the most. motivated focused greatest ux PM of all. time yeah thanks a lot and that's just. not how it works unfortunately. no yeah I guess that's a weird way to. end this whole thing but that's how it. ends huh yeah I mean that's our current. understanding yeah I feel like this is.

one we would be able to do 5 years from. now just to kind of revisit what do you. think nah okay I mean we've never done. that that's dopamine as we understand it. in 2024 everybody that's right if you. want to know more about dopamine go out. and read about it but be very specific. and selective of who you go read There. are some popular people who know what. they're talking about out there but. there's plenty that don't so I guess if. you run run across somebody who refers. to dopamine as a pleasure chemical or.

something like that just turn around and. walk away and go find somebody else how. about that Chuck that sounds good Chuck. said that sounds good everybody and that. means it's time for listener. mail uh I'm going to call this uh from a. conductor we heard from quite a few. conductors so far and that's just on day. one after release so it's um pretty. great to know that there are people out. there that know about this stuff better. than we do that's amazing hey guys thank. you so much for the episode about. conductors I squealed with joy when I. saw it in my feet as I started my.

hourlong commute I teach High School. orchestra and I'm an orchestral. orchestral excuse me a musician with uh. former aspirations of becoming a. professional conductor so it's fun to. hear an Outsiders perspective uh you. wondering what exactly is on each. musician stand during a performance I. love Chuck's analogy of it being like an. actor script with only their lines and. that's pretty close uh but sometimes. there are small annotations of what to. listen for from other sections of the. orchestra uh particularly after a long. section of inactive playing or rests to.

help figure out what you uh where you. are in the music um that's the part. remember I just couldn't believe there'd. be like nothing to quue you um and I saw. other stuff where there were uh. sometimes numeric notations and other. conductors said there were long uh bars. and things that you would pay attention. to um back to the email though okay this. is another key job of the conductor. which you didn't touch on as much uh is. they have the ENT higher score they. often give entrance cues to uh specific.

instrumentalists or sections. additionally there are usually rehearsal. markers that uh delineate the beginnings. of phrases or larger sections this not. only makes rehearsing easier but also. gives greater structure and Scaffolding. to the player it's similar to. punctuation or paragraph structure in a. novel experienced musicians can often uh. almost more or less feel their entrances. based on their contextual knowledge of. the piece and the music phrasing there's. an old ad AG you spend your time. practicing at home to learn your part.

rehearsal time is spent learning. everyone else's oh that's cool it's. pretty good uh the conductor is a. facilitator of this process and you hit. the nail on the head guys The. Interpreter of the score that is from. Britany me and Chuck we did. it yeah we got I think four or five. conductors all wrote in and said like we. did a pretty darn good job on it so that. feels great tell me they said Bravo M I. didn't see a Bravo sorry maybe we'll get. one someday yeah that's pretty great who.

is that from Britney yeah Britney thanks. a lot Britney we appreciate that and to. all the conductors who rode in uh thank. you to you all and uh if you want to be. like all the conductors who rode in like. Britney you can send us an email too. send it off to stuff podcast. iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts ihart. radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows.