Dopamine as an Addiction?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone associated with pleasure. Now, these two bodily messengers are similar but there is a difference between neurotransmitters and hormones. Neurotransmitters are chemicals released within the brain, which can then influence the body, whereas hormones are chemicals released within the body which coordinate different bodily functions.

As a neurotransmitter, dopamine acts as a chemical messenger within the brain, communicating between nerve cells and the rest of your body, stimulated when experiences associated with pleasure and reward occur. This release of dopamine occurs from the ‘reward centre of the brain’ which plays a role in motivation, reward processing and reinforced learning.

 As a hormone, dopamine is released from a gland situated near the kidneys called the adrenal gland and from the hypothalamus within the brain as a neurohormone. When something pleasurable happens to us, dopamine is released and we feel the pleasure. Changes in neural connectivity that occur when dopamine is released can lead us to develop habits as this increased connectivity helps us to repeat actions. 

Dopamine functions on the body 

Dopamine can affect several bodily functions such as mood, sleep, arousal,  insulin production and the slowing of gut movement. When released as a hormone, dopamine can influence the ‘fight or flight response’, a way our body deals with perceived or real stressful events. Most notably, dopamine is involved in our brain’s reward and pleasure pathways.  

So, what is dopamine’s involvement with addiction?

With dopamine being released from the reward centre of the brain, associated with motivation and reward processing, this can reinforce a behaviour if it is pleasurable, making you want to do it more often and drive you to seek out that pleasure. This can create strong urges and over time it may take more of the stimulant, whether that be drugs, gambling or nicotine to trigger this dopamine and ‘feel good’ response. Experts believe this is due to dopamine playing a role in tolerance levels and its involvement with addiction. Tolerance is built, meaning the user would need to take more of a substance to get the same effects.

Triggering the reward centre of the brain too frequently can result in it becoming overwhelmed and releasing high amounts of dopamine. The overstimulated reward centre tries to resolve this issue by decreasing dopamine production and reducing the number of dopamine receptors (these allow the effects of dopamine to occur). These changes can cause the addictive substance/behaviour to have less of an impact on the reward centre, requiring more of it to get a response from the brain and therefore release of dopamine. 

Despite being involved with addiction, there is no need to worry. Lots of experiences can trigger this ‘feel good’ response associated with dopamine, such as eating great food, having sex, exercising, achieving goals and listening to good music. Addiction can be influenced by a variety of different factors such as genes, your age, the people around you, your home life and hardships. 

So, to answer our original question: can you be addicted to dopamine? No, sources say you cannot be addicted to dopamine itself. But, due to its pleasurable and motivating effects on the body when released, it does play a highly prominent role in the addiction to any dopamine-boosting activities.