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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: wasn't this stuff to blow your mind? My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie has returned to

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Speaker 1: us from New York City once a more. It's true,

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Speaker 1: and you have returned from Laryngitisville. Yes, yes for the

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Speaker 1: most part. Yeah, yeah, you're there. Yes. When I was

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Speaker 1: in New York, I attended the World Science Festival, which

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Speaker 1: if you guys have never heard about it, you should

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Speaker 1: immediately well after this episode check it out because they

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Speaker 1: have some online offerings that are wonderful. But when I

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Speaker 1: was there, I checked out this panel on something called

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Speaker 1: the craving brain. And that's what we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about today, this idea of what addiction is and what

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Speaker 1: it is not. Ah, So it's about the craving brain,

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Speaker 1: not craving brains. Not that. Okay. Yeah, No zombie content,

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Speaker 1: as far as I know, is going to tumble forth

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Speaker 1: from our lips today because it's my understanding of you

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Speaker 1: showed up for this this talk expecting a light hearted

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Speaker 1: discussion about zombies. You would have been pretty disappointed. And

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Speaker 1: so that's what we're discussing in this episode addiction the

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Speaker 1: science of addiction, and it's really fascinating this topic because

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Speaker 1: for me, I had not really looked into it. Before

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Speaker 1: I had, I wouldn't say there's just a surface level

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Speaker 1: understanding of addiction, like I was prevy to some of

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Speaker 1: the science and some of the levels of deeper understanding

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Speaker 1: involved in addiction research. But still it's so misunderstood at

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Speaker 1: large in our culture even today. Yeah, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like we are only now getting a baseline understanding of it,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of that has to do with the

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Speaker 1: brain itself. We talk about this all the time. We

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Speaker 1: still don't know exactly how the brain works, and we

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Speaker 1: have more of a clue now than we did one

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Speaker 1: hundred years ago or even twenty years ago. But the

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Speaker 1: fact of the matter that addiction written large is still

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Speaker 1: going to be something that we can't fully cover in depth,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, for us to do that, we would

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Speaker 1: just have to become the addiction podcasts, so we could

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Speaker 1: really give it its due day to talk about every

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Speaker 1: single aspect. But what we want to talk about today

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Speaker 1: is just sort of like this, this idea of addiction

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Speaker 1: in the past in the present, and what are some

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Speaker 1: of the driving conditions. Yeah, so this idea of addictive substances,

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Speaker 1: you go back far enough in history and you get

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Speaker 1: into it. I mean, you don't have to go far

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Speaker 1: back in history at all, where our culture is full

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Speaker 1: of simplistic examples of what's going on, simplistic explanations for

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Speaker 1: what's going on. Yeah, you know, you can say, oh,

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Speaker 1: well that person is addicted, clearly there's a flaw in

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Speaker 1: their character. Or that person is addicted, there's there you know,

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Speaker 1: they're completely controlled by this demonic substance. Or you can

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Speaker 1: throw it to environment and say, well, they're just not

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Speaker 1: in a good environment to you know, and that is

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Speaker 1: what's making them weak to this substance. And that's the

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Speaker 1: thing too, it's often seen, even among people who have

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Speaker 1: a better understanding it of it, it's seen as some

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Speaker 1: sort of of a weakness of character. Even know there

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Speaker 1: that we have so much science to argue differently, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this real need to blame someone or something when

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Speaker 1: it comes to addiction. And so you had mentioned the substance, right, Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's the substance that it is the problem that has

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Speaker 1: demonic possession of the person. Well, if that were the case,

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Speaker 1: then everybody who ever put a bottle of whiskey to

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Speaker 1: their lips would be addicted to whiskey. Right, So we

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Speaker 1: just know that logic is faulty, and yes, it's also

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Speaker 1: looked at as a shortcoming in a person's moral compass,

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Speaker 1: you know, a lack of willpower. But finally we are

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Speaker 1: beginning to understand addiction in terms of a disease, with

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Speaker 1: genetics and environment really playing into how the human brain

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Speaker 1: can change a person's behavior. Indeed, it's that disease model

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Speaker 1: of addiction that has really taken hold and become our

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Speaker 1: major means of understanding exactly what's going on, even though

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Speaker 1: again that still hasn't quite seeped into every you know,

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Speaker 1: level of our culture in terms of viewing addiction in

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Speaker 1: those round us. Yeah, but I do think that the

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Speaker 1: more and more information that is that's really given to

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Speaker 1: the disease brain part, the more we can understand it

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Speaker 1: as a disease like diabetes or anything else that's sort

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Speaker 1: of chronic. But let's talk really about what an addiction is,

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Speaker 1: because when I think about it, I think about this

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Speaker 1: irresistible urge to consume a substance or engage in a

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Speaker 1: behavior over and over again, even though I know it's

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Speaker 1: going to cause me some sort of problem later on.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out there are three dimensions to addiction.

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Speaker 1: Craving kind of binging to just intoxic intoxicating yourself, and

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Speaker 1: three the withdrawal or the negative effect. So you have

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Speaker 1: to think about addiction in that way. It's not just

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Speaker 1: I really like cremberlay and so I eat that ten

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Speaker 1: times a year. It's that you can't stop eating cremberlay

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Speaker 1: even though you keep throwing it up. Yeah. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: some people may you know, jokingly say oh, I'm addicted

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Speaker 1: to this, that or the other. But unless it's unless

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Speaker 1: you're actually throwing up that crimber lay again, you're you're

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Speaker 1: probably not hitting all the points in the addiction. So

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Speaker 1: some of the basics here that you just alluded to,

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Speaker 1: we've discussed many times just in terms of what it

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Speaker 1: is to be human, and that's that's one of the

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Speaker 1: interesting things about addiction is that it is really tied

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Speaker 1: in with the human experience. Because you mentioned the short

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Speaker 1: term goal versus short term vision versus long term problems.

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Speaker 1: You know that that that consonant inability in humans to

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Speaker 1: really decide on the on the long term benefit over

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Speaker 1: the short benefit benefit. And then the other thing is

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Speaker 1: that this is of course all tied in to the

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Speaker 1: pleasure centers of the brain, the reward circuit about you know,

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Speaker 1: in which we have neurotransmitters of dopamine, and it's tied

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Speaker 1: into the basic genetic mission of the human creature. Right,

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Speaker 1: we're getting guitting this pleasure, and the pleasure is a

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Speaker 1: reward for things like eating, drinking, mating, the very basic

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Speaker 1: things that we have to check check off the list

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Speaker 1: into to meet that genetic mission. But when you layer

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Speaker 1: up on you know, all the complexity of cognitive evolution,

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Speaker 1: human culture, it gets more complicated. So suddenly we have

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Speaker 1: all these other different activities that can end up releasing dopamine.

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Speaker 1: I mean everything from eating and drinking and mating to

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Speaker 1: going shopping. Studies have shown you get that release sometimes

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Speaker 1: even when you're you're you know, donating to charity, but

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Speaker 1: also when you're engaging in something like illicited drug use

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Speaker 1: or even even quote unquote non illicit drug use, legal

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Speaker 1: drug use, or even just a you know, a cup

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Speaker 1: of coffee in the morning. Yeah, I mean to put

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Speaker 1: it really simply, pleasure is tied into our survival. It's

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Speaker 1: the way that our bodies and our minds are wired.

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Speaker 1: And so when you think about these different things that

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Speaker 1: we become addicted to, you can kind of think about

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Speaker 1: them in terms of super normal stimuli. And we talked

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Speaker 1: about this how that has such a pull on us,

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Speaker 1: because that's that thing just kind of like with lights

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Speaker 1: blinking around it, saying, hey, this is awesome. You should

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Speaker 1: try me. If you get pleasure from me, you should

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Speaker 1: do it again. And in this way, you could think

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Speaker 1: of a drug as being a sort of like heroin,

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Speaker 1: being super normal stimuli. That sense of contentment and pleasure

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Speaker 1: that you would get. Your body doesn't know whether or

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Speaker 1: not that's a good thing or a bad thing. It

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Speaker 1: just knows the feeling. So most drugs activate this pleasure circuitry,

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Speaker 1: this dopamine circuitry that we're talking about here. So we're

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Speaker 1: talking alcohol, we're talking nicotine, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, cannabis. The

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Speaker 1: only things that really don't make this list are hallucinens

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Speaker 1: LSD and mescaline. And as a side note, food can

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Speaker 1: be an addiction to, but well, we can talk about

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Speaker 1: that pretty much any human behavior. Yeah, so let's say

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Speaker 1: that you have you know, a glass of wine. There's

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Speaker 1: that reward that occurs in the brain. You get a

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Speaker 1: flood of dopamine or I shouldn't say a flood, because

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Speaker 1: it's not an actual flood, but you get a significant

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Speaker 1: amount or increase in the brain that feels like it flood,

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Speaker 1: and that strengthens the neural pathways the memory of the behavior,

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Speaker 1: making it far easier to recall the pleasure and then

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Speaker 1: engage in that behavior again and again. Yeah, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: One of the presenters at the World Science Festival mentioned

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Speaker 1: nine to eleven. The whole idea. You know, everyone knows

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Speaker 1: or thinks they know exactly what they were doing when

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Speaker 1: nine to eleven occurred, like that strong memory, that that

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Speaker 1: sort of pillar standing up standing out from the landscape

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Speaker 1: of our existing memories, and drug memories are like that.

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Speaker 1: Nor a d valcohol was the presenter, by the way,

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Speaker 1: But on one hand, this sounds completely obvious, right, because

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Speaker 1: when one is engaging in some kind of drug, be

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Speaker 1: it a cup of coffee, a cigarette, wine, heroin, et cetera,

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Speaker 1: we're dealing with a heightened level level of pleasure, and therefore,

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Speaker 1: conceivably that is a more memorable moment, right, you're feeling

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Speaker 1: really good at that moment, and therefore your brain is

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Speaker 1: encoding that memory and all the very stimuli around it.

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Speaker 1: So it's not just I had a cigarette and the

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Speaker 1: cigarette was enjoyable and was pleasurable, but I had a

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Speaker 1: cigarette at a bar, I had a cigarette among this

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Speaker 1: group of people, this song was playing. All this stuff

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Speaker 1: sort of gets encoded into the memory. Yeah, and that's

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Speaker 1: the thing that makes us really complicated in the sense

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Speaker 1: because it's very hard to tease out the behavior from

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Speaker 1: the genetics, from the memory, from the environment. It's almost

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Speaker 1: like all of these have a bit of play into addiction.

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Speaker 1: And according to the National Institute of Health, you can

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Speaker 1: see that with brain imaging technology that addiction is disrupting

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Speaker 1: specific brain circuits effected by addiction, and they say that

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Speaker 1: these changes go beyond the brain's reward system to include

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Speaker 1: regions involved in memory learning, impulse control, and we'll talk

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Speaker 1: more about that later. Stress reactivity and repeated drug exposure

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Speaker 1: resets these circuits toward compulsive behavior, so that a person's

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Speaker 1: control over the desire to seek and use drugs is compromised,

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Speaker 1: despite whatever consequences arise. So I thought that was interesting. Again,

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Speaker 1: it's not just the behavior, it's that it's creating these

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Speaker 1: kind of neural pathways, these sort of ghosts in the

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Speaker 1: machine of your brain. So even if you abstain from

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Speaker 1: drugs or that thing, you may still have triggers that

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Speaker 1: would activate those pathways. All right, we're back. We are

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Speaker 1: discussing addiction, the science of addiction. We've just finished talking

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Speaker 1: about addiction, what it is, how it works, what are

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Speaker 1: some of the basics in terms of our understanding of

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Speaker 1: addiction from a disease model standpoint. And this leads to

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Speaker 1: the inevitable question who becomes addicted? Because we've seen this,

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Speaker 1: We see this all the time in the world around us.

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Speaker 1: It's not an equal playing field. Addiction is not an

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Speaker 1: equally equal opportunity of fender. Some people have more of

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Speaker 1: a problem with it than others. And how do we

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Speaker 1: figure that out? Like what's going on there? We can't

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Speaker 1: just say it's you know, God shooting lightning bolts of

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Speaker 1: addiction down at people and making you know, packets of

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Speaker 1: drugs land in front of some and not others. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're just as Addiction itself is more complex than that.

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Speaker 1: Who becomes an addict is also a fairly complex situation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and of course the older model would be, oh, it's

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Speaker 1: the person who has no willpower, it's the person who

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Speaker 1: just doesn't have any integrity. And we know this is

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Speaker 1: not true. We know that addiction is not any one

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Speaker 1: sort of magic bullet that arrives in a person's chest.

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Speaker 1: You could have a genetic disposition which would cause you

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Speaker 1: to have a blunted reaction to dopamine, and that would

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Speaker 1: require more and more of the substance to produce the

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Speaker 1: same sense of pleasure in someone else. So in other words,

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Speaker 1: for me, I genetically have stuff that has to do

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Speaker 1: with addiction in my family. So it may maybe that

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Speaker 1: I need six beers to your two beers to have

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Speaker 1: that same level of dope mean activity in the brain

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Speaker 1: in that sense of pleasure. So that's one way that

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Speaker 1: a person might be become addicted, because they have the

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Speaker 1: circumstances in place. And then of course we have you

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Speaker 1: know the environment, how much stress is in that environment,

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Speaker 1: and we also have the way that the brain develops.

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Speaker 1: So genetics, let's talk about this real quick. Studies of

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Speaker 1: identical twins indicate that as much as half of an

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Speaker 1: individual's risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, alcohol, or other

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Speaker 1: drugs depends on his or her genes and twins. Studies

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Speaker 1: on addiction don't reveal the full reaction range of genotype, right,

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Speaker 1: but they do indicate that under a particular and really

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Speaker 1: relevant societal scenarios, genotype plays a substantial role in your vulnerability. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fifty percent is pretty impressive because that is that is

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Speaker 1: higher than some cancers in terms of how much genetics

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Speaker 1: is playing a role. Now, it's also not as simple

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Speaker 1: as saying, oh, well, here's the gene for a day,

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Speaker 1: can we zapt that. No, it's it's more complicated than that.

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Speaker 1: We're not at the point yet where we can just

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Speaker 1: of funny little scan or blood test and say, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: this person's prone to addiction, although one day we may

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Speaker 1: be able to. But of course, it's just it's a

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Speaker 1: hard thing to answer right now, because you know, if

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Speaker 1: you were to scan a child and say you, it

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Speaker 1: would appear that you may become addicted to something or

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Speaker 1: you may have addictive behavior. Part of that environment is

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Speaker 1: going to factor into that. Right. So again, it's just

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Speaker 1: not that you know, cut and dried, so David Linden,

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Speaker 1: the neuroscientists and author of the Compass of Pleasure, has

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Speaker 1: some really good information out there about variants and genes

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Speaker 1: that turn down the function of dopamine signaling in the

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Speaker 1: brain if anybody wants to read more about that. But

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Speaker 1: we should probably talk about environments and its stressors triggering

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Speaker 1: self medicating behavior, because David Lindon says that stress hormones

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Speaker 1: are secreted by your adrenal glands that sits on top

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Speaker 1: of your kidneys, and they pass into your brain and

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Speaker 1: they bind stress hormone receptors on neurons in your pleasure circuit,

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Speaker 1: and they set in motion a series of biochemical steps

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Speaker 1: that end with you, say, having a bowl of ice

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Speaker 1: cream or smoking a cigarette, essentially anything that's pleasurable to

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Speaker 1: try to negate the stress chemical reaction happening in your body. Right,

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Speaker 1: and then we eventually end up encoding the habit right

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Speaker 1: where we associate feeling stressful with the release of having

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Speaker 1: that cigarette, that ice cream, or of course been in

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Speaker 1: Jerry's cigarette ice cream. Yeah, and we'll talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about habit later on. But then you also

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Speaker 1: have other conditions like you might have PTSD, you might

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Speaker 1: have depression or ADHD, and those underlying factors could certainly

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Speaker 1: ramp up this feeling of stress, anxiety, or depression. Add

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Speaker 1: to this, you have teenagers who are beginning to take

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Speaker 1: on some of these substances, and their brains are pretty male.

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Speaker 1: We know this. We know that the proofnabal cortex, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the seat of judgment, doesn't even really complete itself until

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Speaker 1: the age of twenty five, in some cases much older.

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Speaker 1: So we know already that teenagers are at risk in

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Speaker 1: the sense that they don't have the sort of executive

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Speaker 1: functions that might stop them from engaging in risky behavior.

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Speaker 1: But moreover, there's some evidence that, say, dabbling with nicotine

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Speaker 1: with cigarettes could actually prepare their brains to become more

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Speaker 1: receptive to other substances. Yeah, this is really interesting research

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Speaker 1: because it deals in part with that idea of something

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Speaker 1: as a gateway substance, as a gateway drug, which is

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Speaker 1: a term that has really lost a lot of value,

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Speaker 1: I feel, thanks to its overuse in drug war campaigning,

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Speaker 1: because because you know, we all heard this growing up.

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Speaker 1: You know, the substance, this experience is a gateway to

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Speaker 1: other experiences. It's like you know, stepping your foot into

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Speaker 1: the water, and then that undertow is going to grab

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Speaker 1: you and just drag you down through worse and worse

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Speaker 1: drug experiences into some sort of ultimate doom. And of

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Speaker 1: course people's realities tend to be you know, they say, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, don't smoke cigarettes. It's a it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a gateway drug. And then when one eventually tries a

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Speaker 1: cigarette and they realize, hey, my life didn't just end.

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Speaker 1: You know, I don't feel the world collapsing around me.

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Speaker 1: I don't feel that undertow dragging me down. Therefore this

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Speaker 1: can't be that bad. And those he must have been

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Speaker 1: just completely full of it and trying to scare me

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Speaker 1: with scare tactics into not trying these things. So it's

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Speaker 1: you know, reasons like that that you often end up

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Speaker 1: throwing the idea of a gateway drug out out the window.

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Speaker 1: But the science behind this really argues in the favor

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Speaker 1: of cigarettes, particularly serving as I almost don't want to

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Speaker 1: say gateway drug because again the term is so so bad,

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Speaker 1: but it But what is occurring here is that the

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Speaker 1: nicket is essentially opening up the pathways, loosening the pathway

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Speaker 1: for addictive behavior with other substances. Yeah, according to neurobiologists

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Speaker 1: Amir Levine, and he was on the panel, ninety seven

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Speaker 1: percent of cocaine users smoked first in their teenage years,

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Speaker 1: which is astounding. So he thought, well, is this is just,

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Speaker 1: you know, cause correlation here is there's something actually to this,

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Speaker 1: And so he and his colleagues began to look to

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Speaker 1: see if there are any long lasting changes in nicotine

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Speaker 1: use in the formative years, in the teenage years, so

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Speaker 1: whether they do. They applied mice with nicotine, followed seven

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Speaker 1: days later by cocaine, and compared with mice on cocaine

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Speaker 1: who had not previously received nicotine, the animals were ninety

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Speaker 1: eight percent more active and seventy eight percent more likely

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Speaker 1: to return to areas previously associated with the cocaine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the reverse did not hold true. The cocaine had

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Speaker 1: no effect on nicotine induced behavior and the mind tested

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Speaker 1: in the study. Right, So this all has to do

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Speaker 1: with something called the foss Be gene, which is related

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Speaker 1: to addiction. And what we see is sort of a

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Speaker 1: this is sort of Blameman's terms, or I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to get too deep into it. Probably the best way

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Speaker 1: to say this is that there's a sort of a

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Speaker 1: greater expression of that gene, of that foss B gene if,

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Speaker 1: as you say that, the pathways have been loosened by nicotine.

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Speaker 1: So when cocaine comes along, Hey look at this, we

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Speaker 1: sort of know the drill here is what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it loosens up the DNA packaging system. That's that's involved here,

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Speaker 1: and it's in it, and it allows greater expression of

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Speaker 1: that foss Be gene. Now, the added problem here is,

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Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, the amygdala in teenagers has

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Speaker 1: a heightened sense of fear and a heightened sense of

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Speaker 1: stress when you're a teenager. And amygdala is so interesting

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Speaker 1: to me because it processes both physical pain and emotional pain.

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Speaker 1: So if you're a teenager and you're brooding, you really

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Speaker 1: may feel like life is terrible, life is ending, you're

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Speaker 1: being hurt. Yeah, we did that whole episode on the

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Speaker 1: what I was a teenage teenager? I think, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was a teenage teenager, and so it was I think

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Speaker 1: we had mentioned then. So as an adult, you hear

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Speaker 1: a teenager talking about this and you feel like they're

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Speaker 1: just being history onic, when in fact they are actually

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Speaker 1: feeling that level of pain and discomfort. Yeah, and there

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Speaker 1: I think we discussed in that episode. One of the

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Speaker 1: things about the teenager's brain is that, from you know,

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Speaker 1: an evolutionary standpoint, the teenager is primed to leave his

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Speaker 1: or her community and find a new community in which

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Speaker 1: to thrive, which means that there's an increased dependence on

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Speaker 1: social pressures, on fitting in with a social group, because that,

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Speaker 1: in an evolutionary sense, means survival. And you know, to

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Speaker 1: add more fuel to the fire, if you happen to

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Speaker 1: be that person whose genes dictate an amygdala in the

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Speaker 1: first place that's more reactive to stress, then you are

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Speaker 1: going to feel things a little bit stronger than your

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Speaker 1: average bear, both as a teenager and an adult. So

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Speaker 1: that makes dealing with environmental factors emotions a lot harder.

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Speaker 1: And you can see how people begin to turn to

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Speaker 1: things to comfort themselves, right, whether it be food or smoking,

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Speaker 1: or drugs or some other you need, sex addiction, there

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Speaker 1: are so many different ways to actually try to stoke

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Speaker 1: those I guess if you call them members of pleasure

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Speaker 1: and content. Now, an important thing to keep in mind

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Speaker 1: about about addiction is that it actually changes the brain

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Speaker 1: in many ways. Physically changes the brain of the addict,

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Speaker 1: and so we're going to run through some of the

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Speaker 1: changes that are happening here. Yeah, we mentioned that there

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Speaker 1: is a loss of dopamine receptors in the brains of

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Speaker 1: addicts as D two receptors, So again you would see

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Speaker 1: that it takes more dopamine to get that same sort

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Speaker 1: of level in your brain of pleasure. And I think

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Speaker 1: we mentioned that more in genetics. But when you're taking

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Speaker 1: a substance repeatedly, of course you're going to have some

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Speaker 1: changes in your dopamine receptors. And what's interesting here too

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Speaker 1: is that it's not not just the dopamine receptors as

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Speaker 1: affected by the drug, because that's kind of an obvious,

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Speaker 1: almost a cliche that we understand with with drug addiction.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, now you have to use more to try

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Speaker 1: and chase that original high, where you're having to drink

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Speaker 1: more to to to to reach the same level that

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Speaker 1: you're reaching previously. But it also bleeds over to other

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Speaker 1: areas of the dopamine experience into things such as love,

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Speaker 1: appreciation of food, various you know, other things in life

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Speaker 1: that would give you the same dopamine effect, you feel

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Speaker 1: less of it. So an addict ends up feeling their

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Speaker 1: connection to the rest of the world dampened or even deadened. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and the easiest way to feel normal again in

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Speaker 1: regards to those connections is to turn back to that

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Speaker 1: drug that's warped the dopamine cycle to begin with. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's terrible, right, because at first you're just chasing pleasure,

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Speaker 1: and then that the effects of that substance have taken

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Speaker 1: such a toll that you're just trying to chase a

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Speaker 1: sort of equilibrium. Yeah, that's an important thing to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind. And also something that they hit on in

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Speaker 1: the presentation of the World Science Festival is that there's

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Speaker 1: it's easy to fall into this outsider mode of thinking

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Speaker 1: that owen attic just likes to feel good and that's

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Speaker 1: why they keep taking the substance in order to feel

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Speaker 1: good and to get high and to escape. Whereas to

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Speaker 1: your point, it eventually becomes not about feeling good and

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Speaker 1: about recreation, it's about treating self medicating their own illness.

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Speaker 1: Really well, anybody who has experienced the hair of the

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Speaker 1: dog the next day, right, you know, let people think

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Speaker 1: you have a hangover hair in your mouth, Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: have a hangover. You've got a bunch of dog hair,

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Speaker 1: clown knows on and you don't know what happened. No,

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Speaker 1: actually you wake up and you say, I'll just have

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Speaker 1: a beer to sort of reset myself. I've always wondered

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Speaker 1: if that works, always read about it, and you know

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Speaker 1: they're always doing that in various noir stories and all,

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Speaker 1: but yeah work. I feel like we went over this

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Speaker 1: in the Hangover episode we did ages ago, but I

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Speaker 1: don't recall. Oh no, it's been so long since I

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Speaker 1: engaged in that. I feel like I probably did it.

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Speaker 1: And then, you know, probably later that night had more

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Speaker 1: of whatever like wine, and then felt terrible again, and

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Speaker 1: then woke up again and again. You see how this

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Speaker 1: all plays out. What I thought was interesting about the

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Speaker 1: panel at the World Times Festival is that they showed

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Speaker 1: the brains of a methadict, a heroin addict, and an

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Speaker 1: obese person and what they saw, again is all less

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Speaker 1: D two receptors in the brain. And they said, look,

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Speaker 1: this is also true for obesity, which is essentially food addiction.

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Speaker 1: And if you look in terms of obesity, ninety percent

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Speaker 1: of cases of severe obesity or food addiction, with only

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Speaker 1: ten percent of the cases of severe obesity having to

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Speaker 1: do with a metabolic defect. Again, some of this bleeds

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Speaker 1: over to this other area. When we talk about obesity,

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Speaker 1: we tend to judge the person in the willpower right

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Speaker 1: or the lack of willpower, when what we're seeing here

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Speaker 1: is the habit becoming so ingrained. Another way, the brain changes,

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Speaker 1: addiction results in more sinn apps connections. This is the

430
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:20,160
Speaker 1: idea that the pathways to the habit forms more connections,

431
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: and then the more the substance is abused. And this

432
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:26,440
Speaker 1: is in an area that the researcher are still trying

433
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 1: to fully understand what's going on here. But my understanding

434
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: based on the research materials we're looking at, is that

435
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: this is thought to tie in to again those drug

436
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: memories that are formed. The idea that poin one is

437
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: taking the substance, you're encoding all these memories about the

438
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 1: use of the substance, the environment in which the substance

439
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: is used, and that's playing into these various sinnaps connections. Yeah,

440
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 1: they had a great image of that and you could

441
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: see where the little synatric connections were created, and it

442
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: did kind of give you this idea, here's all the

443
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,920
Speaker 1: stuff that's being created so that you can have a sticky,

444
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 1: sticky memory of the path to get back to the

445
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: behavior or the addiction. Yeah, sticky memory in a sense,

446
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,640
Speaker 1: it's like a sticky place right on the brain saying, hey,

447
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: this is the way to feel good right here. Well,

448
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: it's kind of and it was sort of a terrifying

449
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: image too, because I sort of showed the normal snapped

450
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: the connection there and then this other sort of thing

451
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: that shows up and it had sound effects to remember

452
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: it kind of went right, it have some sort of

453
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: alien like squid. Yeah. The other thing that has affected

454
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: is your hippocampus that sort of rewired in the brains

455
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 1: of alcoholics. And we talk about the hippa campus. We're

456
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: talking more about memory here, So it would make sense

457
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: that if you're an alcoholic, a lot of your memories

458
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: aren't going to be stored in the same way or

459
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:51,440
Speaker 1: even committed long term in the same way. And what

460
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: has been found is that heavy drinking can reduce total

461
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 1: hippocampus volume, and that was reported in the November two

462
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 1: thousand and six issue of Allcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research.

463
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,120
Speaker 1: I've seen other papers on this too that we'll say

464
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: that the person's memory while it can suffer that the

465
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: brain sort of shuttles the hippocampus, or rather some of

466
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: the functions of the hippocampus to other parts of the

467
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: brain to try to make up for that. But what

468
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is an imperfect memory, right. Also,

469
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 1: it has an effect on willpower, you know, with decreased willpower. Yeah,

470
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,479
Speaker 1: so that's kind of you know, adding links some insult

471
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 1: to injury here, right, because you know, you engage in

472
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: the behavior and if it becomes routinized enough, then all

473
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: of a sudden, that part of your brain that deals

474
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 1: with executive function, well you don't have nearly as much

475
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:51,400
Speaker 1: neural activity there because of the behavior. So even if

476
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: you wanted to quit, it makes it that much harder.

477
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: Another way that we're actually seeing the brain change here

478
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 1: with addiction. Twenty twelve, research from the University of North

479
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: Carolina School of Medicine, using mice in a research product,

480
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: found that a heavy alcohol use actually a rewires brain circley,

481
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: making it get harder for alcoholics to recover psychologically following

482
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience, which again feels like another kick in

483
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: the gut to this overall situation because you suddenly decreased

484
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: the willpower, and you're going to have harder time bouncing

485
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: back from traumatic events. And therefore, what comfort blanket do

486
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: you run to? You go to the substance that is

487
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: the gateway to feeling normal again. Yeah, we'll talk a

488
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: little bit more specifically about relapse in the next episode,

489
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: but when we talk about more of it, the future

490
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: of addiction. But yeah, I mean that when do people

491
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: tend to relapse, Not when things are going well, It's

492
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: when something terrible, as stressful as happening in their lives.

493
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: And again, you've got those ghosts of the neural circuitry

494
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: just sitting there waiting to be activated. Yeah. I think

495
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: when we were discussing habits in one of our habit

496
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:00,360
Speaker 1: episodes for around the year's time, I think talked about

497
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 1: when the brain forms a new habit, it's like a road. Okay,

498
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: you have a two lane highway going from point A

499
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: to point B. When you want to build a new road,

500
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: you have to build next to that existing road, you know, yeah,

501
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: or even off of that existing road. So maybe you

502
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: have the new four lane highway over here, but that

503
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 1: two lane highway is still there. The brain still knows

504
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: where it is and it has to, or if it

505
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: thinks it has to, it will take that road. That's right.

506
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: So if that road is that you take a drink

507
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: at six pm and that's when all of this would

508
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: begin these triggers, then you just take the other road.

509
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: Maybe you go and work out at six pm. You

510
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,719
Speaker 1: have to take something else and replace the behavior in

511
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: order to really sort of mess with the ghosts of

512
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: the neural circuitry. In fact, when we talk about habit

513
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: there are a couple of authors and researchers and m

514
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: Grable and Kyle S. Smith writing for Scientific American, and

515
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: they say that we learn in chunks, kind of like

516
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: if you are committing the digits of pie to your

517
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: your memory, you would probably do them in chunks, like

518
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: say seven digits, right, And they're saying the same thing

519
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: happens with habits. And this happens when the prefrontal cortex

520
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: communicates with a striatum and the stritum communicates with the

521
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: midbrain where dopamine helps with learning and assigning values to

522
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: values to goals. And they say that these circuits create

523
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: feedback loops which help us to figure out what's working

524
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: and not working in behavior. And as we that's sort

525
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: of the point where you can be like, eh, I

526
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: don't know about this behavior, right, Like maybe your executive

527
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: functions are sort of still intact. But let's say you

528
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: keep repeating the behavior over and over again while that

529
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:47,479
Speaker 1: feedback loops becomes stronger, stamping routines into these single units

530
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: or chunks. Yeah, the chunking process, which I think when

531
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: we've touched on this before, the analogy I always go

532
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: to is like hot keys. You know, instead of instead

533
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: of going through you know, go to the down menu

534
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: in a program and then go to another sub menu

535
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: to pull up this tool that you use all the time,

536
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: you just start using the hot key, and then the

537
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: hot key becomes such a habit you forget how to

538
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:11,719
Speaker 1: find it elsewhere. You may even forget what the hot

539
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: key is. You just have the muscle memory of hitting it.

540
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: And this you see the same thing in various programming,

541
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: right and where the program is it X, then Y

542
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: and z. So that's what your brain is doing. It's

543
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: taking the shortcuts. It's an economic way of doing the

544
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: same task over and over again. Well, here's the crazy

545
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: thing that these researchers saw is that and they saw

546
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: this in Rats to you. By the way, they saw.

547
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: They did a ton of research on this. They saw

548
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: that chunking, that imprinting getting stronger and stronger with the

549
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: feedback loops, and eventually another system called the infralimbic system,

550
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: well it says, oh, I'll help you out here, straat,

551
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: and I'll help you chunk some more of these and

552
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: imprint this stuff. And so what happens is that the

553
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: infralimbics cortex begins to work in concert with dopamine and

554
00:30:55,400 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: begins to really control when we should this activity. And

555
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: it's almost like that infralimbic system becomes it's sort of

556
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: like this outside part of the brain going, well, okay, stratum,

557
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: if you're going to keep doing this and your loops

558
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: are going to get, you know, more and more well trenched,

559
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 1: then I'll go ahead and vet this behavior. And as

560
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: we talked about with Charles Dohig in his book about habits,

561
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: at some point habits become so ingrained that your prefrontal

562
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: cortex is just like, you know what, I don't need

563
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: to do this, I know this, this person's this is

564
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: that person's habit, and don't I just need to give

565
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: a radio silent here because the rest of the brain

566
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: knows what to do now and pick up All right,

567
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: so I know what everyone's wondering at this point. Is

568
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: all this damage we've we've talked about the changes that

569
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: occurring to the brain of the damage. Is it reversible?

570
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: Can you actually turn back the clock on this and

571
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: sort of reclaim the brain? Kind of depends on agent

572
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: genetics according to the panel from the World Science Festival,

573
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: and the level of neural plasticities. So, hey, if you're

574
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: younger and you catch this, well obviously the damage to

575
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: your brain can be then you can kind of go

576
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: back in the time machine and work things back out. Yeah,

577
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: and you're often earlier in the overall timeline of addiction too. Yeah,

578
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: so you know that working in your advantage. So basically,

579
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: the earlier you catch it, the earlier you were able

580
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: to actually get in there, and not not as much

581
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: as even turn back the clock as much as just

582
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: try to prevent going further down the road, the better

583
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: after you're going to be. If you are further down

584
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: the road, you've got those molecular and cellular scars that

585
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: remain on the brain. You could actually maybe have a

586
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:45,959
Speaker 1: little injection of synthetic human growth hormone and Researchers from

587
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: Upselling University in Sweden have been doing this. They have

588
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: been looking at brain cells targeted for early death by

589
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: continued opiate use, and they're seeing that some of those

590
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: cells can be salvaged by this the growth hormone. Oh well, excellent.

591
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: So but you know who knows sort of what the

592
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: side effects are that and that's yeah, certainly down the road.

593
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: Don't head your bets on that and say, oh, well,

594
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: I'll just get an injection at my brain and that'll

595
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: fix everything. Once I've I have actually put put the

596
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: halt on the drug use. Yeah, if you've listened to

597
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: our earlier episodes, don't pe on yourself, if you've been

598
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: stung by jellyfish, don't self trepidate, and don't inject yourself

599
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: with HGH. Yes. Yeah, all right, So there you have it.

600
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: There is a just you know, intro into the science

601
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: of addiction. What's happening in the brain, what kind of

602
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: changes are occurring, and what can be done ultimately to

603
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: reverse some of this damage and put a stamp on it. Yeah.

604
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: And David Lyndon said something very interesting to Terry Gross

605
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: when he was on her show and he was talking

606
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: about his book, The Compass of Pleasure. He said, when

607
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: you understand the biology of the pleasure circuit, and when

608
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 1: you understand how the contribution of genetics and stress and

609
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: life experience actually even start in the womb and going forward,

610
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: all come together. The end result is that you have

611
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: to realize that any one of us, any one of us,

612
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: could be an addict at any time. Addiction is not

613
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: fundamentally a moral failing. It's not a disease of weak

614
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: willed losers. When you look at the biology, the only

615
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: model of addiction that makes sense is a disease based model,

616
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: and the only attitude toward atticts that make sense is

617
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,359
Speaker 1: one of compassion. I know a number of you out

618
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: there probably have experience with this topic, be it personal

619
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: experience or experience with a loved one, et cetera, and

620
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: if so, certainly reach out to us. We'd love to

621
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: hear from you on this on the science of addiction.

622
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with this a number of ways,

623
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 1: as always good to stuff to blow your mind dot

624
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 1: com that's the mothership. That's so you'll find all of

625
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:46,360
Speaker 1: our content, our podcast, our videos, or blog posts, links

626
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,

627
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: Google Plus YouTube Where we are mind Stuff Show. Be

628
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 1: on the lookout for all sorts of cool and exciting

629
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: new video products there. And you know what I'm addicted

630
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 1: to to? What is it? Listener mail ah And the

631
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: way that you can deliver listener mail to us is

632
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: by sending us an email at blow the Mind at

633
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com. For more on this and thousands of

634
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: other topics, visit HowStuffWorks dot com. M