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How does the brain create the experience of joy and desire? That’s the subject of David Linden’s new book, The Compass of Pleasure. A professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Linden studies memory. But here, he explores the basis of craving, addiction and satisfaction.
Many people have heard that the neurotransmitter dopamine is the brain’s “pleasure” signal, but it’s more complicated than that. What does it really do?
It has kind of a dual role. For example, if you have a person in a brain scanner who is hungry, and you show them a picture of food that they enjoy, you will see dopamine release in part of the pleasure circuit, a part called the striatum. If they actually get a chance to eat that food or any other food that they enjoy while in the scanner, you will also see release of dopamine./..../
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