Dopamine v. serotonin

[Umantis]

From PARADE Magazine (don't laugh), Sunday February 14, 2010, Page 2 "Personality Parade"

Q: I loved Jeff Bridges' shout-out to his wife ("32 years!" ) when he won Best Actor at the Golden Globes. Why do so few other Hollywood marriages last?
A: "My guess is that Hollywood stars are high-dopamine - risk-taking, creative, spontaneous, and highly sexual," biological anthropologist Helen Fisher tells us. And what about long-standing couples like the Bridgeses? "High serotonin." You can read all about brain chemistry in Fisher's book Why Him? Why Her? Or just buy a box of chocolates.

First I thought, "wtf; sers?" (i often abbrev. even in my silent thoughts) Then I thought, still, despite this ridiculous oversimplification, I'm glad to see a mention of brain chemistry anywhere in the mainstream media (Parade Magazine is distributed through Sunday papers nationwide) Finally I thought, what can be taken away from this analysis?

Thoughts?

 

[idtravlr]

From the perspective of the psychiatry and big pharmaceutical industries, I feel there is WAY TOO much focus on brain chemistry. These industries are breaking every little personality nuance down to "imbalanced brain chemistry". I think societies beliefs surrounding "the right way to be" are shaping our concept of normal. Anyone who is not conforming to the status-quo is automatically deemed unbalanced chemically, and all they need is to take a pill to fix it. This is what we are being taught.

The reality is that many of the "chemically unbalanced" brains of our time have risen above and beyond, and done great things BECAUSE they think differently, act differently, get bored easily, can't sit still for one hour in a mundane 19th century classroom atmosphere.

People are being brainwashed to believe that if they have a personality "quirk" of some kind, that they are ill, and need to take a pill to make them just like everyone else. The western culture is slowly becoming a population of dry, monotonous drones.

Umantis - I may have drifted off course from your actual question, if so I'm sorry. It's my A.D.D. and O.C.D kicking in. :lol:

Peace!
-idt

 

[Umantis]

No worries - I think that although Big Pharm has an interest to keep us soma'd up in the brave new world, any popular mention of the concept of brain chemistry is bound at some point to flip some mental switches and liberate some souls from the matrix. Gotta start somewhere...

I thought that it was really intriguing though, how the "expert" seems to have dichotomized a large group of people into two very distinct categories, pairing the "if it feels good do it" crowd with a preference for dopamine, whereas others who prefer serotonin would behave much differently ("responsibly"?). This has social planning aspects, such as in marketing or government; if advertisers or authorities can understand more about brain chemistry, they could be better at pushing the right buttons, and they could gain influence or control more efficiently.

Again, this is science fiction derived from an oversimplification, but i figured it might be of interest to the better-living-through-chemistry crowd.

 

[benzyme]

Finally I thought, what can be taken away from this analysis?

not much.
it is an oversimplification, to say the least.
most people focus on one receptor system, and are oblivious to how they're connected to others.

just a decade ago big pharma focused on SSRIs
now they have meds that are a mix of SSRI and SNRI.

 

[ragabr]

From Becoming Transhuman (amazing, btw), "On the Possibility of Directly Accessing Every Human Brain by Electromagnetic Induction of Fundamental Algorithms" by (god-spot researcher) Michael Persinger. He appears to make the case that by flooding the environment with specific types of EM signals, the moods of everyone within it could be stabilized to a specific range of emotions. Not that culture doesn't already do this, but I think this is another step in that direction.

 

[polytrip]

This is just the same sort of simplification as left brains VS right brains.

There is always SOME truth in it. But for people to truly be only a leftbrain person or a dopamine-person, there must be some psychiatric disorder.

Parkinson patients have a severe dopamine shortage. I don't think that having a good mariage is in any way a sign of even extremely mild parkinsonism and that is what this thesis would imply.

It also implies that jeff bridges would probably immediately start cheating on his wife as soon as he was given L-dopa.

 

[Virola78]

I'm sorry honey. But it wasnt my fault.
She put some L-dopa in my coffee..

About the monotonous drones mentioned earlier..
I see them all the time when i am on mushrooms.
Attack of the zombies really. quick! gimme a chainsaw..

 

[benzyme]

Parkinson patients have a severe dopamine shortage.

dopamine is inhibitory to acetylcholine, an excitatory neurotransmitter. the symptoms of parkinsons are due to excessive aCh signaling (loss of fine motor control). this is why I say neurotransmission systems are connected, it's important to observe that.


treatment with l-dopa is common, but it does no good if downreg occurs; which is why rasagiline should be used in conjunction with l-dopa

 

[polytrip]

Parkinson patients have a severe dopamine shortage.

dopamine is inhibitory to acetylcholine, an excitatory neurotransmitter. the symptoms of parkinsons are due to excessive aCh signaling (loss of fine motor control). this is why I say neurotransmission systems are connected, it's important to observe that.


treatment with l-dopa is common, but it does no good if downreg occurs; which is why rasagiline should be used in conjunction with l-dopa

This is an interresting fact, but irrelevant in relation to my remark: to say that there are dopamine and serotonin people who behave differently is to say that someone exhibiting a form of behaviour that's associated with one of the two: dopamine=cheating of your wife, does at least have symptoms of a dissorder associated with that transmitter.


So the implication would be that jeff bridges must at least have a mild form of parkinsonism because he never cheats on his wife.

 

[benzyme]

again, it's a bit simplistic to make the correlation

although it's no secret people with high levels of dopamine, as in the manic phase of bipolarI, tend to be on the promiscuous side, it doesn't make sense for someone on the low end of it to be the same way. they're sorta 'out of it'.

 

[benzyme]

From the perspective of the psychiatry and big pharmaceutical industries, I feel there is WAY TOO much focus on brain chemistry.

psychiatry isn't really science, the DSM is a joke of overlapping symptoms. Neurochemistry actually is a legitimate science, albeit a fledgling.
psychiatry and big pharma are businesses using 'science' as a means to an end.

 

[idtravlr]

From the perspective of the psychiatry and big pharmaceutical industries, I feel there is WAY TOO much focus on brain chemistry.

psychiatry isn't really science, the DSM is a joke of overlapping symptoms. Neurochemistry actually is a legitimate science, albeit a fledgling.
psychiatry and big pharma are businesses using 'science' as a means to an end.

This is probably a dumb question. But what is DSM?

And yeah benzyme - I absolutely believe that Neurochem is legitimate and a very real, extremely important science when it comes to certain debilitating conditions or diseases, as well as just understanding the brain's inner-workings. What frustrates me is that it is used (like you stated) to market toward many "conditions" that are not in any way debilitating (or even legit IMHO), such as mild depression (everyone get's this once in a while), and ADD / ADHD, etc. ADD is a sign of a very imaginative & active mind. The kind of mind that is likely to think 'outside the box' and do or create great things. BUT, because this kind of mind does not harmonize well with the standard classroom environment, it is numbed with prescription drugs. The mind is forced to fit the environment, instead of the environment developed to stimulate the mind.

Peace,
-idt

 

[Ginkgo]

This is probably a dumb question. But what is DSM?

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a manual where you can look up the symptoms of different "mental disorders". It is really a huge joke, I feel it can't be taken serious at all. Nonetheless it is.

 

[bufoman]

While neurochemistry is absolutely central to the psychological state of an individual these simplifications tend to be inaccurate and misleading. This type of general correlating chemistry with behavior... should be taken with a grain of salt....

The functioning of the CNS is exceedingly complex. Different regions have different cells types with different receptor subtypes, which can be any one of numerous isoforms, which may have varying types and degrees of different post-translational modifications (phosphorylation, acetylation, methylation, glycosylation...). Furthermore depending on the cell a given receptor can be linked to one of several G-proteins, which can lead to the activation of various second messenger pathways which depending on the biochemistry of that individual place and time can lead to a variety of intracellular changes .... including gene regulation.... a given neurotransmitter can have completely opposite effects depending on "the cell" it acts on. In this way it is the cell itself that determines the activity not the transmitter.

 

[idtravlr]

^^Very interesting bufoman! I've heard similar information shared amongst the behavioral therapy disciplines, hence why a specific condition can not necessarily be treated simply by focusing on neurotransmitters alone.

Good stuff, I find this kind of thing fascinating. Thanks for sharing!

Peace,
-idt