Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.8; color: #1a1a1a; margin: 0 0 1.2rem 0;">Dopamine has been described by a very famous neuroscientist, Kent Berridge at the University of Michigan, who has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the dopamine system. He has labeled a key function of the dopamine system as "wanting," and he contrasts that with something it is often confused with, which is "liking."

Many times, we like the things we want. But not all the time.

For Dharma Lab viewers, who likely have some appreciation for how the mind works, I think we all have some insight into recognizing that sometimes we get caught up in a wanting cycle that is not necessarily leading to liking. It is a kind of perseverative loop of wanting.

This is part of the reason why there are popular stereotypes about dopamine.

But dopamine also plays an incredibly positive and important role. When I spring out of bed in the morning, go down to have my cup of tea, and then meditate, and have the strong aspiration to meditate, that is inevitably relying on the dopamine system too.

If dopamine were completely blunted, it would be very difficult to get out of bed and do anything. You can think of dopamine as part of an approach-oriented, energetic stance. Anytime we have an aspiration to do something, that is going to rely, at least to some extent, on the dopamine system. So this is not a system we want to get rid of.

Doom Scrolling and the Loop of Seeking

00:19:24

Cortland Dahl

Let me give you a real-world experience, and I'd love to ask how dopamine does or does not play a role in it.

I am very rarely on social media. It's not something I spend much time on. But the other night I had an experience that a lot of people probably have all the time. Somebody forwarded me a link from one of these apps where you end up scrolling forever.

It was a video that made me laugh hysterically out loud. I was sitting by myself in a room, and if someone had looked in the window, they would have thought I was nuts.

It was a video where two friends were looking at themselves on the screen, and one had put on a filter that made it look like a bug was crawling across the other person's face. So the person sees what looks like a spider on their face and starts slapping themselves. It was hilarious.

I watched that and was literally laughing hysterically. And the algorithms of these apps know when you watch the whole thing twice. So then it shows you more of the thing you clearly liked.

Then there was another one, and the next one was even funnier. It was wives playing a prank on their spouses, pretending to freak out like something was happening, just to see what the husband would do. And the husbands would start screaming and running around. Again, it was hilarious. I was laughing out loud.

But then I got into this loop where I was trying to find another one. It was so funny, and I had this little burst of joy. Then I literally wasted an hour of my time. After a few minutes I wasn't laughing anymore. I was just scrolling mindlessly.

I wasn't consciously thinking, "I have to find another funny video." I was just in this inner loop, sucked into the endless scroll, until I finally thought, "I've got to go to bed." Then I felt like, "What a waste of time."

That first minute or two was actually funny. It was nice to laugh hysterically. And then it became a lot of mind-numbing scrolling that was utterly unsatisfying.

So let's look at a moment like that from the perspective of what is going on in the brain, and specifically with dopamine. These are the moments where people demonize dopamine, as though that's the thing that happened and we need to somehow extract it. What would you say about that?

Does Dopamine Explain Why We Keep Scrolling?

00:22:32

Richard Davidson

Those are interesting experiences that I think all of us have occasionally.

I would say dopamine likely plays some role, at least in the initial entry into that scrolling perseveration. Whether it is sustaining that over the whole period of time, I don't know. It's an interesting question.

Part of it depends on the extent to which you feel a real strong urge to do it. If someone took away your phone at that point, how would you react? There are ways of probing whether the wanting cycle is really dominant.

There could be other reasons why people scroll. One of my theories is that people engage in this kind of behavior in part to block the default mode, because the scrolling is consuming. I'm curious about your phenomenological report of when you are scrolling. But I think that at least in the initial stages of scrolling, when people are really into it, there is what we would call experiential fusion.

Experiential Fusion and Mindless Behavior

00:24:21

Cortland Dahl

For sure.

Richard Davidson

Their whole awareness is fused with the activity they're engaged in. There's not a lot of meta-awareness. They're just sucked in.

Cortland Dahl

It's almost like there's no conscious doom scrolling, because if you were fully aware and conscious, you would just stop doing it.

I sometimes have the same experience drinking soda. You almost have to do it mindlessly, because if you really savor the taste, it's actually kind of gross. I've noticed there are certain foods and certain things you consume that only work mindlessly.

Richard Davidson

But that's not true of French fries.

Cortland Dahl

Richie, now you're in sensitive territory. We're not going to go there. I will concede soda. French fries, we'll see. I'll experiment with that.

But it's true. Certain things only work mindlessly. When you consciously do them, you would not do them anymore because they don't feel good. It's interesting. It changes a lot.

Richard Davidson

Exactly. That is in part what sustains that kind of behavior as well. And I don't think that is primarily a dopaminergic process. Viewers may ask, "Okay, then what molecule is responsible for that?" And I would say, likely 500 molecules. Don't even try to think about it that way. It's not the right level of analysis.

Novelty and Reward Prediction Error

00:25:42

Cortland Dahl

Going back to Berridge's work, we have a whole episode on the distinction between liking and wanting, and there's a great paper where he summarizes a lot of the research in this area.

If you look at the experience I was having, there was a moment of genuine liking. I was having fun. I was laughing hysterically. Then there was a moment of seeking. I was just looking.

There are all sorts of interesting things in the way algorithms work. There is something around duration. There is something around novelty. If you really pay attention, it's not just that everything is the same. The algorithm gives you things that are different intentionally, and then you get something you like and it feels new again.

If you got the exact same thing 10 times in a row, even if you liked it at first, you would grow accustomed to it. It would lose the novelty factor. So there is something around duration, novelty, and emotion. There are all sorts of things mixed into it.

Richard Davidson

The novelty piece you're mentioning is really important. It is a very important aspect of dopamine function that has been studied.

There is this idea of a reward prediction error, as it is called in the technical scientific lingo.

What is a reward prediction error?

In this case, you have a certain class of video that you're looking at. You saw one, so you have a mental model of what these videos are like.

Cortland Dahl

So now that's what I want. That's the wanting. I'm looking for that.

Richard Davidson

Exactly. You're looking for that.

Let's say the next video you encounter is even more hysterical. That is a reward prediction error. You would actually see a larger dopamine spike than you saw previously.

If you saw a video that was comparable to what you just saw, there wouldn't be any change in the dopamine signal. If you saw a video that was much less interesting and less compelling, there would be a decline, a decrement in dopamine.

Dopamine signaling is very dynamic and responsive to the information to which you are being exposed. It plays an important role in certain aspects of learning, and it informs your future seeking.

The Easter Egg Example: Seeking, Finding, and Disappointment

00:29:00

Cortland Dahl

Let's unpack that.

We just had Easter in the U.S., and I had this image of a little kid running around looking for an Easter egg. They have the model. They know what they want. They're looking, they're not finding, then they find something. Sometimes they find something beyond what they expected, maybe an extra big piece of candy or the basket with all the candy.

That seems like a good example because the seeking is very clear. The mental model is very clear. The not finding, and then the finding more, has all the dimensions you talked about.

But it's interesting. You're saying that when the kid is looking for the Easter egg and doesn't find it, say they lift up the cushion of the couch and there's nothing there, dopamine levels will actually drop in that moment?

Richard Davidson

Yes.

Cortland Dahl

Because if you forget about the neurotransmitters and just look at behavior, of course the seeking doesn't stop. They immediately shift and think, "Where do I need to go next?" So there's something still driving the seeking. But if dopamine is dropping, and if dopamine is that motivational, goal-directed impulse in the brain, how does that work?

Dopamine in Different Brain Circuits

00:30:23

Richard Davidson

Those are excellent questions. It's an opportunity to speak about another piece of complexity: dopamine is found in a number of different parts of the brain. It's not just in one isolated location.

Its function in different parts of the brain is different. It is the same molecule, but the location is different, the receptors are different, the connections are different, and the function is different.

The dopamine that is part of the wanting circuit is found primarily in an area of the brain called the ventral striatum, a subcortical area that is rich in dopamine.

We know that if there is brain damage to that area, based mostly on animal studies, animals will not seek in the ways we've been talking about. But it doesn't affect their enjoyment of a reward.

Let's say bananas are their favorite food. They can smell the banana. They know it's six feet away. If they walk, they can get the banana. But they will not go and get it, even though they can smell it.

But if you put the banana in their mouth, they will enjoy it. Scientists know they enjoy it because they make certain sounds and facial expressions when they are enjoying it. If you video them, you can see it.

There are other molecules that seem much more associated with pleasure. The two major classes of molecules associated with pleasure in the brain are endogenous opiates and endogenous cannabinoids. Endocannabinoids are related to the active ingredient in marijuana, and they are found endogenously in the human brain. Those molecules are active in response to pleasure.

The reward prediction error signaling I was talking about is mediated in a different but adjacent part of the brain that is also rich in dopamine. The caudate nucleus is critically important for prediction error signaling. There is also prediction error signaling in other areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex.

So these dopamine-related functions occur in different areas of the brain.

Cortland Dahl

So going back to the Easter egg example, the child is looking for something, wanting something, and not finding it where they expect it to be. Is it in the caudate that the levels would drop, but in the ventral striatum they might still be high because the child is still seeking?

Richard Davidson

I'm not sure what would happen in that specific case. If the child is still seeking, you would expect dopamine levels to be high in the ventral striatum.

The prediction error changes we're talking about are phasic changes. They are extremely short-lived, very dynamic, up and down. They are like an evoked potential, an electrical signal that goes down and then up very quickly. These are changes that we cannot see in the human brain because we do not have methods to look at changes on that time course non-invasively.

What Actually Helps with Compulsive Loops?

00:35:37

Cortland Dahl

Zooming out, with memes like dopamine detox, I think what people are trying to understand and intervene in are these cycles that are essentially unfulfilling but become almost compulsive behavior. Doom scrolling is maybe the classic example.

You're doing something inherently unfulfilling, and yet you do it compulsively and for long periods of time.

One key takeaway is that this is likely much more complex than we normally think. Even with one chemical, one neurotransmitter or neuromodulator, it depends on which part of the brain you're looking at, which network you're looking at, and the time course from one moment to the next.

So you can't just say, "That's the thing we want to stop happening," because it is way more complex than that.

But what could we say? In my mind, disentangling liking and wanting is one of the most helpful things for understanding how this is processed in the brain. What would you want people to know that could help them navigate some of these compulsive behaviors that we get stuck in?

Savoring as a Way Out of Wanting

00:37:47

Richard Davidson

The knowledge we're providing in this discussion can be helpful as background. But locking onto it in an excessively concrete way may not be that helpful.

Getting stuck in doom scrolling may involve dopamine initially, but it has to be much more complicated than that. It clearly involves other things too.

I think the distinction between wanting and liking is very important. Creating the causes and conditions that help us appreciate the liking, and really tune in to the events or stimuli associated with liking, can be enormously helpful.

Some psychologists have called this savoring. We can really savor these positive moments, and that can help us get unstuck from the loop of wanting.

The dopamine story is interesting, and at a very high level there is truth to the fact that dopamine is primarily associated with wanting and seeking. To the extent that this kind of behavior is causing problems, we can do our best to change it.

But one of the best ways to change it may be simply to focus more on liking.

Meditation, Breath, and the Practice of Savoring

00:39:24