| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | |||||
| Book | Page | Topic | |||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 2 | A key motivator of our lives, pleasure is central to learning, for you must find things like food, water, and sex rewarding in order to survive and pass our genetic material to the next generation. | |||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 2 | Many of our most important rituals involving prayer, music, dance, and meditation produce a kind of transcendent pleasure that has become deeply ingrained in human cultural practice. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 3 | Our legal systems, our religions, our educational systems are all deeply concerned with controlling pleasure. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 3 | Jails are bursting with people who have violated laws that proscribed certain forms of pleasure. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 3 | Most experiences in our lives that we find transcendent -- whether illicit vices or socially sanctioned ritual and social practice as diverse as exercise, meditative prayer or even charitable giving -- activate an anatomically and biochemically defined pleasure circuit in the brain. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 4 | Intrinsic pleasure circuitry can be co-opted by artificial activators like cocaine or nicotine or heroin or alcohol. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 4 | Evolution has hardwired us to catch a pleasure buzz from a wide variety of experiences from crack to cannabis, from meditation to masturbation, from Bordeaux to beef. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 4 | As societies and as individuals, we are hell-bent on achieving and controlling pleasure. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 4 | The dark side of pleasure is addiction., including tolerance (meetings successively larger doses to get high), craving, withdrawal, and relapse. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 4 | Addiction appears to be learning-driven changes in neural circuitry that are used to store memories in other brain regions. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 4 | We can be motivated by pleasure to achieve goals that are entirely arbitrary -- goals that may or may not have an evolutionary adaptive value. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 5 | Drug addicts do not derive greater reward from getting high than non-addicts. The biology says no: They actually seem to want it more but like it less. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 5 | Understanding the biological basis of pleasure leads us to fundamentally rethink the moral and legal aspects of addiction to drugs, food, sex, and gambling and the industries that manipulate these pleasures in the marketplace. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 5 | Brain imaging studies show that giving to charity, paying taxes, and receiving information about future events all activate the same neural pleasure circuit that's engaged by heroin or orgasm or fatty foods. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 5 | Understanding the molecular basis of enduring changes in the brain's pleasure circuitry holds great promise for developing drugs and other therapies to help people break free of addictions of many sorts, to both substances and experiences. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 7 | Peter Milner and James Olds in 1953 at McGill University under the direction of psychologist Donald Hebb conducted experiments implanting electrodes deep in the brains of rats. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 9 | Milner and Olds discovered a pleasure center, a reward circuit, the activation of which was much more powerful than any natural stimulus. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 9 | Deep in the brain there is a group of interconnected structures, all located near the base of the brain and distributed along the midline, constituting the reward circuit. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 9 | The reward circuit includes the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the medial forebrain bundle, and the septum, as well as portions of the thalamus and hypothalamus. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 15 | Anatomy of a rat's pleasure circuit is very similar to that of humans. | 6 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 15 | When neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are active, spikes travel along axons to terminals in the nucleus accumbens, triggering the release of neurotransmitter dopamine. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 16 | Pleasure circuit in the brain of a rat (diagram) | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 16 | Neurons of the VTA also send dopamine releasing axons to other brain regions, including the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex, which are emotional centers; the dorsal striatum, involved in some forms of habit learning; the hippocampus, involved in memory for facts and events; and the prefrontal cortex, a region that controls judgment and planning. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 17 | Synapse that uses the neurotransmitter dopamine (diagram) | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 17 | Some of the dopamine released by VTA neurons into axon terminals at the nucleus accumbens can undergo reuptake into the axon terminal, where it will be recycled for later use. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 17 | Cocaine and amphetamines block the dopamine re-uptake process, causing dopamine to linger in the synaptic cleft and thereby activating dopamine receptors more effectively. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 19 | Some psychoactive drugs were, at least in part, by hijacking the pleasure circuit -- they artificially increase the effects of dopamine release from VTA neurons. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 21 | Parkinson's Disease, first described in 1817 by James Parkinson as the "shaking palsy", also involves symptoms of cognition and mood, which often precede the onset of movement disorders. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 23 | In untreated Parkinson's disease, chronically low levels of dopamine result in dialing down of the pleasure/reward circuit and a disinclination to seek novel experiences, and are associated with a reduced risk of addiction. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 23 | In some Parkinson's patients treated with high doses of dopamine receptor agonists, the level of dopamine action, in both the pleasure circuit and associated structures, is high, thereby dialing up the function of the pleasure circuit. This confers increased vulnerability to impulse control disorders and addiction. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 25 | Human societies strictly regulate pleasurable activities, and most have a concept of vice that's applied to unregulated indulgence in food, sex, drugs, or gambling. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 25 | The brain's pleasure circuitry is activated by "vice" stimuli: orgasm, sweet and fatty foods, monetary reward, and some psychoactive drugs. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 26 | The medial forebrain dopamine circuit seems to be engaged by almost everything we find pleasurable. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 26 | The activity of the pleasure circuit in isolation results in a lifeless pleasure lacking color and depth. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 26 | What makes pleasure so compelling is that, through the interconnection of the pleasure circuit with other brain regions. It is adorned with memory, with associations and emotions and social meaning, with sights, sounds, and smells. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 26 | Transcendence and texture emerge from the web of associated sensations and emotions that the pleasure circuit engages. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 27 | All cultures used drugs that influence the brain. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 27 | Drugs that influence the brain include mild stimulants like caffeine or drugs with potent euphoric effects like morphine. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 27 | Some drugs that influence the brain carry a high risk of addiction, some do not, some alter perception, others mood, and some affect both. A few can kill when used in excess. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 28 | Our national drug is alcohol. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | Opium, prepared from the poppy plant, was in use long before the time of Imperial Rome. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | Evidence from the archaeological record place the early use of opium to places in Mesopotamia about 3000 BC. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | Opium was widely consumed -- either by being eaten, dissolved in wine, or inserted in the rectum -- for both medical and ritual purposes by the ancient Egyptians and by the Greeks soon thereafter. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | An Egyptian medical text from the year 1552 BC recommends opium as an aid to help small children sleep. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | The famous Greek physician Galen popularized the use of opium. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | During the reign of Roman emperor Septimus Severus the distribution of opium became widespread with its adoption as a Roman recreational drug. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | During the years following Septimus Severus, the poppy plant became a symbol of Rome, stamped upon its coins, and inscribed upon his temples, and woven into its religious practice. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 29 | By the census of AD 312, opium could be procured in 793 different shops in Rome. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 30 | Ether is a highly volatile liquid that may be produced by mixing sulfuric acid with alcohol, as discovered by a German chemist around 1540. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 30 | The inhalation of ether vapors leads to the effects that range from euphoria to stupor to unconsciousness. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 31 | Ether's volatility -- a liquid at room temperature but a gas at body temperature -- dramatically speeds its effects. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 31 | Ether vapors can be inhaled, but liquid ether can be swallowed. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 31 | The immediate effects of drinking ether are similar to those of produced by alcohol, but everything takes place more rapidly; the stages of excitement, mental confusion, loss of muscular control, and loss of consciousness follow each other so quickly that they cannot be clearly separated. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 31 | Recovery from ether drinking is extremely rapid. Ether drunks picked up by the police on the street, were often completely sober by the time they reached the station, but suffered no hangovers. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 31 | Ether drinking spread rapidly throughout Ireland after 1845, and the substance could be purchased from grocers, druggists, and even traveling salesmen. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 32 | Ether drinking in Ireland was finally curtailed in 1891. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 32 | The downside of ether drinking include a truly awful smell and taste, coupled with a strong burning sensation while the foul stuff is going down. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 32 | Either drinking makes you drool, not to mention stimulating truly monumental burps and farts, which are laden with highly flammable ether vaporous. Severe burns at either end of the alimentary canal were a common hazard. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 35 | Plant-based psychoactive drugs are common throughout the world. | 3 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 37 | Psychoactive drugs can be used in many different social contexts: as medicine, as religious sacrament, as pure recreation, or to define oneself as part of a subgroup (elite, outsider, rebel, etc.). | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 37 | Across cultures and over thousands of years of human history, people have consistently found ways to alter the functions of their brains, while cultural enforcers such as governments and religious institutions have sometimes sought to regulate the use of these substances. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 38 | Because most psychoactive drugs are derived from plant extracts (cannabis, cocaine, caffeine, heroin, nicotine) or from simple recipes applied to plants (alcohol, amphetamines) or fungi, they are widely available and widely used. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 38 | Animals in the wild will voluntarily and repeatedly consume psychoactive plants and fungi. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 38 | Birds, elephants, and monkeys have all been reported to enthusiastically seek out fruits and berries that have fallen to the ground and undergone natural fermentation to produce alcohol. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 40 | One psychiatrist believes that all creatures, from insects munching psychoactive plants to human children playing spinning games to get dizzy, have an inborn need for intoxication. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 40 | Stimulants, which comprise a wide range of compounds that increase wakefulness and generally upregulate mental function, include cocaine, amphetamines, and caffeine. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 40 | The sedatives are calming and sleep inducing, and cause discoordination and slow reaction times. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 40 | Sedatives include alcohol, ether, barbiturates, the benzodiazepine tranquilizers (such as Xanax). | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 40 | The hallucinogens (substances like LSD) have as their primary action and the disruption of perception -- distorting vision, hearing, and other senses. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 40 | Opiates (including plant derived compounds like opium, morphine, and heroin as well as synthetic opiates) are sedatives, but deserve their own category because they produce a unique and potent euphoria (and capacity for pain relief), effects that are not shared by other sedatives with a different chemical action. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | While alcohol at high doses is always a sedative (to the point where it can be lethal), at lower doses it has a stimulating effect, particularly in certain social contexts. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | Nicotine has a complex and subtle psychoactive effect, with mixed actions of a stimulant, a sedative, and a mild euphoric. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | The popular club drug ecstasy is both a stimulant and a weak hallucinogen and has the additional quality of inducing a sense of intimacy with others. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | Cannabis is a sedative but also has mild euphoric properties (more than nicotine but much less than heroin). | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | Antidepressant drugs, like the serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors (Prozac) or the dual-action antidepressants, will lighten the mood of many people, whether or not they suffer from depression. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | While a certain drug will always have the same chemical action, that action is influenced by one's ongoing brain state in ways that can modulate its effects. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 41 | People who are given morphine for pain relief typically report a lot of pain abatement and only a mild euphoria. Others taking the same dose of morphine recreationally will report a much higher degree of euphoria. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 43 | The stimulants cocaine and amphetamines enhance the effects of dopamine released from VTA neurons by blocking the reuptake of dopamine into axon terminals in the VTA target regions, thereby prolonging dopamine action in the VTA target regions and stimulating the pleasure circuit. (see p.17) | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 44 | SSRI antidepressants like Prozac work by inhibiting the re-uptake of released serotonin. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 44 | The biochemical function of the morphine receptor was demonstrated in 1973. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 44 | Natural analogues of morphine are called endorphins. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 44 | A large family of opioid receptors with different biochemical actions has been discovered, accompanied by the description of a large number of endorphins. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 44 | The role of the endorphins/opioid system is multifaceted, being implicated in a variety of functions including pain perception, mood, memory, appetite, and neural control of the digestive system. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 44 | For tobacco, the key psychoactive ingredient is nicotine, which activates a subset of the receptors for the endogenous neurotransmitter acetylcholine. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 45 | Heroin and related drugs (morphine, OxyContin, methadone) produce indirect activation of the pleasure circuit by reducing release of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, resulting in disinhibition of VTA dopamine neurons. (diagram) | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 46 | Nicotine produces a similar end result to morphine: It binds and activates receptors on the glutamate containing axon terminals that contact VTA dopamine neurons. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 46 | When nicotine activates the specialized receptors (alpha-7-containing nicotine acetylcholine receptors), this action increases glutamate release, producing greater excitation of the VTA neurons and increased dopamine release. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 46 | A whole range of psychoactive drugs up-regulate dopamine action in VTA target regions. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 46 | The psychoactive drugs span a broad segment of drug taxonomy: from stimulants like cocaine and amphetamines, to sedative like alcohol, opiates like heroin, and to drugs of mixed action like nicotine and cannabis. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 46 | When humans are placed in a brain scanner and given an intravenous hit of cocaine or amphetamines or heroin, strong activation of the VTA and dopamine release in the VTA target regions is seen, and the event peaks precisely when the subjects report their pleasure rush is strongest. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | In habitual drug use the repeated barrage of the nucleus accumbens, dorsal striatum, and the prefrontal cortex by the VTA dopamine neurons produces changes in these target structures. | 15 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | After five days of repeated cocaine administration, they nucleus accumbens undergoes a series of alterations. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | One of the alterations of the nucleus accumbens is an increase in the level of the neurotransmitter dynorphin, one of a class of natural molecules called endorphins that have morphine-like effects. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | Increased dynorphin release in the nucleus accumbens dampens the electrical activity in this portion of the pleasure circuit (and thereby overrides activity in "upstream structures" like the VTA). | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | Activity in the nucleus accumbens is further suppressed through another mechanism -- LTD of the glutamate-using synapses that convey information to the nucleus accumbens from the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | Both the dynorphin and LTD mechanisms producing changes in the nucleus accumbens turn down the gain on the pleasure circuit and are likely to underlie early stages of addiction: tolerance and dependence. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | In the absence of more cocaine, the action of the pleasure circuit is chronically suppressed, leading to depression, lethargy, irritability, and inability to derive pleasure from other activities: the mental symptoms of drug dependence/withdrawal. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 61 | For an abstaining addict, still further neuronal changes occur. One of the most noticeable is in the fine structure of the main class of neurons in the nucleus accumbens, the medium spiny neurons, with their long, branching dendrites covered with tiny dendritic spines, where most of the synaptic contacts from other neurons are received. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 62 | In rats that become addicted to cocaine, there is an overgrowth of dendritic spines so that these medium spiny neurons become super-spiny, allowing for increased excitation. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 62 | Each individual synapse received by a medium spiny neuron under those LTP. This LTP doesn't just counteract the LTD seen immediately after five days of cocaine -- it overshoots it, leading the synapse stronger than it was in the pre-drugs state. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 63 | The super-spiny effect and the LTD overshoot effect in the nucleus accumbens following a period of abstinence have been suggested to underlie drug sensitization. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 63 | Current research is mostly conducted with rats and mice, as we can't yet measure the LTP and LTP noninvasively. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 63 | There is great promise for developing therapies to help people break addictions that will suppress cravings and prevent sensitization and relapse and help recovering addicts stay drug-free. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 63 | The challenge will be to develop drug addiction therapies while not compromising other aspects of the pleasure circuit involving crucial behaviors like eating and sex. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 64 | Given the right circumstances (which can include factors like high stress, early drug exposure or childhood abuse, poor social support, or genetic predisposition), anyone can become a drug addict. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 64 | Many of our most important historical figures have been drug addicts -- Aldous Huxley (alcohol, LSD), scientists like Sigmund Freud (cocaine) and hardcharging military leaders and heads of state from Alexander the Great (a massive alcoholic) and Prince Otto von Bismarck (who typically drank two bottles of wine for lunch and topped it off with a little morphine in the evening). | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 64 | From studies comparing identical and fraternal twins it is estimated that 40 to 60% of the variation in the risk for addiction is contributed by genetic factors. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 64 | We are only in the early stages of understanding genetic contributions to addiction. There is no single addiction gene, and it is likely that a large number of the genes are involved in this complex trait. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 64 | One tantalizing observation concerns the gene for the D2 subtype of dopamine receptor, a crucial component of the pleasure circuit. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 64 | A particular variant of the D2 dopamine receptor gene results in reduced expression within the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum. Carriers of this variant are a significantly more likely to become addicted to alcohol, cocaine, or nicotine. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 65 | In families with a strong history of alcoholism, brain scanning has revealed that those family members who were not alcoholics had more D2 receptors in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsal striatum. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 65 | Research studies suggest that elevated levels of D2 receptor may be protective against certain forms of drug addiction. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 65 | Research studies suggest the D2 receptor as one target for new addiction therapies. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 65 | The long-lasting changes in neural circuits that are the result of repeated drug use, such as LTP and LTD and structural changes in neurons, can all be produced by one's experience in the world as well. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 65 | Our genes and our neural circuits predispose us to certain behaviors, but our brains are malleable, and we can alter their neural circuits with experience. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 78 | Food and addictive drugs activate overlapping pleasure circuits in the brain. | 13 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 81 | Humans who take drugs that increase basal dopamine signaling show reduced appetite, as well as reduced caloric intake and weight gain, whereas drugs that reduce dopamine signaling produced the opposite effects. | 3 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 81 | Chocolate is an unusually good activator of brain pleasure centers. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 83 | Human ancestral diet was mostly vegetarian, with very little fat and very little sugar. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 83 | In the human ancestral diet, sweet flavors were rarely encountered -- it typically occurred in ripe fruit or wild honey. Meat was a rare luxury and was usually quite lean. For inland peoples, salty flavors were almost unknown. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 83 | As a result of the ancestral diet, humans are hardwired from birth to like certain tastes and smells, most notably those of sugar and fat, but also salt. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 83 | Both humans and rats show much greater activation of the VTA and dopamine release in VTA target regions when eating energy-dense fatty and sugary foods. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 84 | Large, fast rising pleasure signals are the most rewarding and most addictive. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 84 | The combination of fat and sugar is superaddictive, producing a significantly larger jolt to the pleasure circuit than either one given alone. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 86 | Unsafe drugs are available that will reduce appetite and cause weight loss in a broad spectrum of patients. Drugs like amphetamines, which artificially stimulate midbrain dopaminergic reward circuit, are very effective but also highly addictive and have disastrous side effects. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 89 | Moderate stress will stimulate appetite and a wide variety of a mammals. | 3 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 89 | Moderate stress can cause weight gain and especially the addition of abdominal body fat. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 89 | Results to date suggests there is some stress-evoked biochemical signal that modifies the feeding and/or pleasure circuits to trigger overheating of comfort foods. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 90 | The adrenal gland releases corticosterone, which along with its metabolites passes into the brain, where they contribute to the brain responses to stress. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 90 | Behavioral strategies for stress reduction (like meditation or exercise) can reduce the amplitude of stress hormones surges and are thereby effective in reducing stress triggered overheating. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 90 | While moderate stress can trigger overeating, severe stress can have the opposite effect, suppressing appetite. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 90 | Stress is often a trigger for the use of certain drugs -- such as alcohol, heroin, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamines -- that activate the pleasure circuit. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 90 | Stress plays a particularly critical role in triggering relapse following a period of abstinence in addicts. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 90 | Relapsing addicts report a particularly stressful event as precipitating their return to drugs. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 92 | Food addiction shares many properties and biological substrates with drug addiction, including a strong heritable component and triggering by stress. | 2 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 92 | Chronic exposure to some drugs can rewire the pleasure circuit, by changing synaptic structure and function. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 95 | In most mammals besides humans, the female advertises her fertility with clear signals: unique sexual gestures and calls, odors, and swellings. | 3 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 95 | Human females have concealed ovulation, so there is no obvious displays of a woman's ovulatory cycle. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 95 | Most human penis-vagina intercourse is recreational. It is not timed to the ovulatory phase. It continues in situations when conception is completely impossible, such as during pregnancy or after menopause. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 95 | Over 90% of mammalian species are highly promiscuous, with both males and females having multiple sexual partners, even on the same day. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 95 | Humans tend to be monogamous, or at least serially monogamous. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 102 | In the throes of intense romance, changes in mood become magnified: the highs are higher, and if anything goes wrong (or the love is unrequited) and the lows are lower. | 7 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 102 | The intense, euphoric pleasure that comes with falling in love corresponds to strong activation of the dopaminergic pleasure circuit -- the VTA and its targets, like the caudate nucleus. The pattern of activation is similar to responses to cocaine or heroin. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 102 | Distortions of critical faculties relating to the beloved might result from a deactivation of the prefrontal cortex, a judgment center, as well as deactivation of the temporal poles and parietal temporal cortex, cortical regions involved in social cognition. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 103 | Deactivation of certain portions of the prefrontal cortex is also found in obsessive/compulsive disorder, which indeed shares some aspects with new love. | 1 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 103 | The intense, initial phase of romantic love typically lasts from nine months to two years, to be replaced, in most couples, by a less intense form of loving companionship. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 103 | A small number of people report that their feelings for their partner are just as intense 10 or 20 years on as they were soon after they first met. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 103 | Most long-term lovers no longer showed strong activation of the VTA dopamine center -- the other brain changes were mostly intact, but the pleasure circuit no longer got the cocaine-like jolt. | 0 | ||
| Linden; Compass of Pleasure | 104 | A minority of couples can indeed keep the glow of new love burning beyond the initial infatuation stage of a relationship. | 1 | ||
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