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My Most Listened to Songs of 2022: Tank And The Bangas – Stolen Fruit
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Watch “Improving Access to Care for People with Developmental Disabilities”
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Addiction Hijacks the Brain
You’ve probably heard of the brain’s reward network. It’s activated by basic needs — including food, water and sex — and releases a surge of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine when those needs are met. But it can also be hijacked by drugs, which lead to a greater dopamine release than those basic needs.
But the reward network isn’t the only brain network altered by drug use. A new review concluded that drug addiction affects six main brain networks: the reward, habit, salience, executive, memory and self-directed networks.
In 2016, a total of 20.1 million people ages 12 and older in the U.S. had a substance-use disorder, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey on drug use. And drug addiction, regardless of the substance used, had surprisingly similar effects on the addicted brain, said the review, published in the journal Neuron.
The review looked at more than 100 studies and review papers on drug addiction, all of which studied a type of brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
More than half of the studies out there look at the effects of drug use on the reward network, said Anna Zilverstand, lead author of the new review and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
“Because we showed that the effects are very distributed across the six different networks … [we can conclude that] an approach that only looks at one of these networks isn’t really justified,” Zilverstand told Live Science. “This [finding] will hopefully lead other researchers to look beyond the reward network.”
For example, the memory network is pretty much ignored in research on substance-use disorders, Zilverstand said. This network allows humans to learn non-habit-based things, such as a new physics concept or a history lesson. Some research has suggested that in people with substance-use disorders, stress shifts the person’s learning and memory away from the memory network to the habit network, which drives automatic behavior, such as seeking and taking drugs.
Another less-studied network is the self-directed network, which is involved in self-awareness and self-reflection, the review said. In people with addictions, this network has been associated with increasing craving.
Two other networks are involved in substance-use disorders: The executive network is normally responsible for goal-maintaining and execution, but drugs can alter this network as well, reducing a person’s ability to inhibit their actions. The salience network picks up important cues in a person’s environment and redirects the individual’s attention to them. (In people with drug addiction, attention is redirected toward drugs, increasing craving and drug-seeking.)
Which comes first, the brain activity or the drug use?
“For me, the most surprising [finding] was how consistent the effects were across addictions,” Zilverstand said. What’s more, “the fact that the effects are quite independent of the specific drug use points to them being something general that might actually precede drug use rather than be a consequence of drug use.”
Zilverstand said she hopes that more studies will look at whether some people have abnormal brain activity in these six networks naturally and if that activity just gets exacerbated if they begin drug use. It’s important to know if some of these traits precede drug use; if that’s the case, it might be possible to identify people who are prone to addiction and intervene before an addiction begins, she said.
Some research has pointed toward this possibility already. For example, studies have shown that some people have “difficulties … inhibiting impulsiveness before drug use,” Zilverstand said. “Some of these impairments precede drug use, and they may become worse with more drug use, but they exist before the problem escalates.”
The good news, however, is that activity in four of these networks — executive, reward, memory and salience — moves back toward “normal” once drug use ends. “We know that four of the networks (partially — not fully) recover but not yet what happens to the other two networks,” Zilverstand said in an email.
Zilverstand added that she’s particularly excited about an ongoing study called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which is tracking 10,000 children across the U.S. from around ages 9 or 10 to age 20 (the children are now around 13). Some of these individuals will inevitably become addicted to drugs, most likely marijuana or alcohol, Zilverstand said.
“We’ll be able to see if the effects that we found [in the review] exist in youth who have not yet abused drugs,” she said, and she predicted that researchers will be able to find a lot of the effects identified in the review in the six brain networks.
The authors noted that because some regions of the brain are very small — for example, the amygdala, which is found toward the center of the brain — the studies can’t identify strong signals from those areas on brain scans. So, it’s possible that drugs affect additional networks in the brain that are hidden because of the limitations of our technologies, Zilverstand said.
“We don’t want to conclude that [those effects] don’t exist,” she said.
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My Most Listened to Songs of 2022: WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA – Edison
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Positive Me
Most people know me as a generally positive glass haft full kinda person. And it’s true, I see most everything in a positive light. This has pissed and angered more than a few over the years. Not really sure why, I suppose they expect me to react and respond to things, people, and places the way they do…. but I don’t, never have, never will.
We have the power to define the meaning of events in our lives.
I learned this as a very young child from my aunties who would visit every summer to help my mom “deal” with me. As an autistic with a heart condition who preferred tree contact more than human contact my mom struggled to know what to do with me. Of course she didn’t have to deal or do, but to just let me be …. which she eventually did (mostly).
My positivity seems to have increased over the years, (if that’s even possible). After heart surgery, multiple brain surgeries, occasional homelessness, and numerous threats of violence I remain optimistic, upbeat, and hopeful.
We do have the power to define the meaning of events in our lives. People, places, and things.
Looking out my window at the sunset -
Watch “Can our assumptions help shape a better world? | Dr. Zoé von Finck | TEDxESMTBerlin”
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Ways to increase happiness
The most important question to ask when you feel down
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like your brain wants you to be happy. You may feel guilty or shameful. Why?
Believe it or not, guilt and shame activate the brain’s reward center.
Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering activity in these regions — except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves — they’re activating the brain’s reward center.
And you worry a lot, too. Why? In the short term, worrying makes your brain feel a little better — at least you’re doing something about your problems.
In fact, worrying can help calm the limbic system by increasing activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and decreasing activity in the amygdala. That might seem counterintuitive, but it just goes to show that if you’re feeling anxiety, doing something about it — even worrying — is better than doing nothing.
But guilt, shame, and worry are horrible, long-term solutions. So what do neuroscientists say you should do? Ask yourself this question:
What am I grateful for?
Yeah, gratitude is awesome … but does it really affect your brain at the biological level? Yup.
You know what the antidepressant Wellbutrin does? Boosts the neurotransmitter dopamine. So does gratitude.
The benefits of gratitude start with the dopamine system, because feeling grateful activates the brain stem region that produces dopamine. Additionally, gratitude toward others increases activity in social dopamine circuits, which makes social interactions more enjoyable …
Know what Prozac does? Boosts the neurotransmitter serotonin. So does gratitude.
One powerful effect of gratitude is that it can boost serotonin. Trying to think of things you are grateful for forces you to focus on the positive aspects of your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex.
I know, sometimes life lands a really mean punch in the gut and it feels like there’s nothing to be grateful for. Guess what?
Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to find anything. It’s the searching that counts.
It’s not finding gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look in the first place. Remembering to be grateful is a form of emotional intelligence. One study found that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortex. These density changes suggest that as emotional intelligence increases, the neurons in these areas become more efficient. With higher emotional intelligence, it simply takes less effort to be grateful.
And gratitude doesn’t just make your brain happy — it can also create a positive feedback loop in your relationships. So express that gratitude to the people you care about.
For more on how gratitude can make you happier and more successful.
But what happens when bad feelings completely overtake you? When you’re really in the dumps and don’t even know how to deal with it? There’s an easy answer …
Label negative feelings
You feel awful. OK, give that awfulness a name. Sad? Anxious? Angry?
Boom. It’s that simple. Sound stupid? Your noggin disagrees.
In one fMRI study, appropriately titled “Putting Feelings into Words” participants viewed pictures of people with emotional facial expressions. Predictably, each participant’s amygdala activated to the emotions in the picture. But when they were asked to name the emotion, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activated and reduced the emotional amygdala reactivity. In other words, consciously recognizing the emotions reduced their impact.
Suppressing emotions doesn’t work and can backfire on you.
Gross found that people who tried to suppress a negative emotional experience failed to do so. While they thought they looked fine outwardly, inwardly their limbic system was just as aroused as without suppression, and in some cases, even more aroused. Kevin Ochsner, at Columbia, repeated these findings using an fMRI. Trying not to feel something doesn’t work, and in some cases even backfires.
But labeling, on the other hand, makes a big difference.
To reduce arousal, you need to use just a few words to describe an emotion, and ideally use symbolic language, which means using indirect metaphors, metrics, and simplifications of your experience. This requires you to activate your prefrontal cortex, which reduces the arousal in the limbic system. Here’s the bottom line: describe an emotion in just a word or two, and it helps reduce the emotion.
Ancient methods were way ahead of us on this one. Meditation has employed this for centuries. Labeling is a fundamental tool of mindfulness.
Make that decision
Ever make a decision and then your brain finally feels at rest? That’s no random occurrence.
Brain science shows that making decisions reduces worry and anxiety — as well as helping you solve problems.
Making decisions includes creating intentions and setting goals — all three are part of the same neural circuitry and engage the prefrontal cortex in a positive way, reducing worry and anxiety. Making decisions also helps overcome striatum activity, which usually pulls you toward negative impulses and routines. Finally, making decisions changes your perception of the world — finding solutions to your problems and calming the limbic system.
But deciding can be hard. I agree. So what kind of decisions should you make? Neuroscience has an answer.
Make a “good enough” decision. Don’t sweat making the absolute 100% best decision. We all know being a perfectionist can be stressful. And brain studies back this up.
Trying to be perfect overwhelms your brain with emotions and makes you feel out of control.
Trying for the best, instead of good enough, brings too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal activity into the decision-making process. In contrast, recognizing that good enough is good enough activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, which helps you feel more in control …
So when you make a decision, your brain feels you have control. And, as I’ve talked about before, a feeling of control reduces stress. But here’s what’s really fascinating: Deciding also boosts pleasure.
Actively choosing caused changes in attention circuits and in how the participants felt about the action, and it increased rewarding dopamine activity.
We don’t just choose the things we like; we also like the things we choose.
Touch people
No, not indiscriminately; that can get you in a lot of trouble.
But we need to feel love and acceptance from others. When we don’t it’s painful. And I don’t mean “awkward” or “disappointing.” I mean actually painful.
Neuroscientists did a study where people played a ball-tossing video game. The other players tossed the ball to you and you tossed it back to them. Actually, there were no other players; that was all done by the computer program.
But the subjects were told the characters were controlled by real people. So what happened when the “other players” stopped playing nice and didn’t share the ball?
Subjects’ brains responded the same way as if they experienced physical pain. Rejection doesn’t just hurt like a broken heart; your brain feels it like a broken leg.
In fact, as demonstrated in an fMRI experiment, social exclusion activates the same circuitry as physical pain … at one point they stopped sharing, only throwing back and forth to each other, ignoring the participant. This small change was enough to elicit feelings of social exclusion, and it activated the anterior cingulate and insula, just like physical pain would.
Relationships are important to your brain’s feeling of happiness. Want to take that to the next level? Touch people.
One of the primary ways to release oxytocin is through touching. Obviously, it’s not always appropriate to touch most people, but small touches like handshakes and pats on the back are usually okay. For people you’re close with, make more of an effort to touch more often.
Touching is incredibly powerful. We just don’t give it enough credit. It makes you more persuasive, increases team performance, improves your flirting … heck, it even boosts math skills.
Touching someone you love actually reduces pain. In fact, when studies were done on married couples, the stronger the marriage, the more powerful the effect.
In addition, holding hands with someone can help comfort you and your brain through painful situations. One fMRI study scanned married women as they were warned that they were about to get a small electric shock. While anticipating the painful shocks, the brain showed a predictable pattern of response in pain and worrying circuits, with activation in the insula, anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. During a separate scan, the women either held their husbands’ hands or the hand of the experimenter. When a subject held her husband’s hand, the threat of shock had a smaller effect. The brain showed reduced activation in both the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — that is, less activity in the pain and worrying circuits. In addition, the stronger the marriage, the lower the discomfort-related insula activity.
Sum up
Here’s what brain research says will make you happy:
- Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter. Just searching helps.
- Label those negative emotions. Give it a name and your brain isn’t so bothered by it.
- Decide. Go for “good enough” instead of ‘best decision ever made on Earth.”
- Hugs, hugs, hugs. Don’t text — touch.
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My Most Listened to Songs of 2022: Jenny High ジェニーハイ「エクレール
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Why The U.S. Can’t End Poverty. CNBC
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Watch “Health Matters 2023: How 21st Century Science Is Improving How We Age”
