Quotes About Dopamine

Reward systems, such as those mediated by dopamine, also destabilize during adolescence in order to allow for the creation of new attachments, behaviors, and goals. This search for purpose and meaning makes adolescents more vulnerable to good and bad social influences

Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams.

Every time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from... from... wait, what was I saying?

Narcotized by technology, we sacrifice long-term purpose and fulfillment for the short-term dopamine-driven feedback loops created by Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. This is not healthy. As with the pace of change, I don't see a horizon where this societal problem slows down because a majority of us suddenly stop using social media's irresistible tools. Only we can control how profoundly we allow vicarious living to infect our life, one individual at a time.

Dr. Greenfield, predictably, goes further. He deems young people who are raised on digital devices "Generation D." "They're so amped up on dopamine that when it's not firing, they feel dull, dead," he says. And that means they need to move on to the next thing, quickly, rather than staying with something. "They have no threshold for attentional capacity.

You hear the ping of an incoming text or call, you respond; the ping happens, you respond. And each time you respond, you get a hit of dopamine. It's a pleasurable feeling, a release from the reward center. Then it's gone. There is no incoming text, no stimulation. You start to feel bored. You crave another hit.

The release of dopamine is a form of information, a message that tells the organism "Do that again." Dopamine produces the sensation of pleasure that accompanies mastering a task or accomplishing a goal, which makes the organism want to repeat the behavior, whether it is pressing a bar, pecking a key, or pulling a slot machine lever. You get a hit (a reinforcement) and your brain gets a hit of dopamine. Behavior—Reinforcement—Behavior. Repeat sequence.

Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment: the monotony undermines our dopamine and attentional systems crucial to our brain plasticity.

This led NIMH to conclude that excess dopamine is one of the reasons people's brains malfunction.