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Can the human brain stop producing dopamine?
Yes, and when it does, you first stop moving and then eventually die.
Look, everything you think you know about dopamine is wrong. It’s not a happy chemical, your brain doesn’t have a dopamine storage tank, and dopamine isn’t a magic woo juice.
Your brain cells don’t touch each other. They aren’t electrical wires. A signal goes down a neuron and triggers a spurt of neurotransmitter at the end. When that spurt touches another neuron, it triggers it to fire. (That’s a little oversimplified but gets the idea across.)
Dopamine is one of those neurotransmitters.
Dopamine is used in the so-called “reward circuit” of the brain, but that’s not the only place it’s used, and it doesn’t mean dopamine gives you pleasure. You also don’t “run out” of dopamine if you feel “too much” pleasure. Each spurt is reclaimed by the neurotransmitter reuptake system—it doesn’t go away.
The neurons in your voluntary motor control areas also use dopamine the exact same way, yet nobody ever says if you move around too much you “burn out” your dopamine receptors or become “addicted.”
Anyway, there are diseases that cause your brain to stop producing dopamine. Parkinson’s disease is one of them. As the dopaminergic cells in your brain fail, you lose ability to move, and you become increasingly paralyzed. That doesn’t kill you directly though. Generally people with Parkinson’s die of pneumonia when they lose the ability to swallow and start inhaling food.
Yes, and when it does, you first stop moving and then eventually die.
Look, everything you think you know about dopamine is wrong. It’s not a happy chemical, your brain doesn’t have a dopamine storage tank, and dopamine isn’t a magic woo juice.
Your brain cells don’t touch each other. They aren’t electrical wires. A signal goes down a neuron and triggers a spurt of neurotransmitter at the end. When that spurt touches another neuron, it triggers it to fire. (That’s a little oversimplified but gets the idea across.)
Dopamine is one of those neurotransmitters.
Dopamine is used in the so-called “reward circuit” of the brain, but that’s not the only place it’s used, and it doesn’t mean dopamine gives you pleasure. You also don’t “run out” of dopamine if you feel “too much” pleasure. Each spurt is reclaimed by the neurotransmitter reuptake system—it doesn’t go away.
The neurons in your voluntary motor control areas also use dopamine the exact same way, yet nobody ever says if you move around too much you “burn out” your dopamine receptors or become “addicted.”
Anyway, there are diseases that cause your brain to stop producing dopamine. Parkinson’s disease is one of them. As the dopaminergic cells in your brain fail, you lose ability to move, and you become increasingly paralyzed. That doesn’t kill you directly though. Generally people with Parkinson’s die of pneumonia when they lose the ability to swallow and start inhaling food.
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