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Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

picower.mit.edu

11–20 of 140 posts

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#11
post #5

I have a simple question. How do I control dopamine in "my" brain so that I can focus on "here and now" instead of HN and GitHub.

You can try forming other habits in order to break the feedback loop. eg. define a good habit and repeat it. For example, at the start of the day immediately start working where you left the day before, then after lunch break you can check e-mail and read the news.

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#13
post #3

can someone build a script that extracts the names of all this stuff like neurotransmitters, messengers, proteins, hormones and visualizes their amounts per metabolism around/at the time of the measured effect/observed behavior and or during the time of conditioning -- when stimulating (chemical, physical, psychological) measures were taken? a table to start with would be fine. please? all that lingo is above my pay-…

I believe this may be called neuroscience.

Strikes me that parent comment wants to see a knowledge graph constructed. Could be done for a lot of fields, and would be effectively named for the field they describe, like 'neuroscience' in the example you illustrated.

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#14
post #10
post #5

I have a simple question. How do I control dopamine in "my" brain so that I can focus on "here and now" instead of HN and GitHub.

Strengthen your prefrontal cortex so "you" have more control over your urges. You typically do this with meditation.

Or you just set a firewall and block these 2 websites ^^ (Welcome to the club)

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#15

Incoming cocaine therapy! Seriously though as someone who suffers from extreme anxiety I am eternally grateful for this kind of work. I would really like to see this combined with brain stimulation.

Well MDMA therapy is a real one and probably much more effective than cocaine for these purposes.

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#16
post #5

I have a simple question. How do I control dopamine in "my" brain so that I can focus on "here and now" instead of HN and GitHub.

1. Cold plunge - high but transient (last for hours). I do it in the morning, after my shower - start the day off right.

2. Exercise - short-term: increases dopamine, serotonin, and a bunch of other good stuff; long-term: increases dopamine receptor density.

3. Caffeine - while doesn't technically increase dopamine, it blocks adenosine receptors which indirectly increases dopamine signalling. But habitual use blunts the effect.

Other less acute things are: good sleep and lots of sunlight esp early in the day.

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#17
post #5

I have a simple question. How do I control dopamine in "my" brain so that I can focus on "here and now" instead of HN and GitHub.

Dopamine levels don't reset until you sleep, roughly speaking.

Don't do highly dopaminergic activities like using electronic devices that provide entertainment or communications

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#18

can someone build a script that extracts the names of all this stuff like neurotransmitters, messengers, proteins, hormones and visualizes their amounts per metabolism around/at the time of the measured effect/observed behavior and or during the time of conditioning -- when stimulating (chemical, physical, psychological) measures were taken? a table to start with would be fine. please? all that lingo is above my pay-…

Ask Google Deep Research, I'm sure it will do a good enough job

Re: Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

#19

Incoming cocaine therapy! Seriously though as someone who suffers from extreme anxiety I am eternally grateful for this kind of work. I would really like to see this combined with brain stimulation.

What’s interesting here is that in the drug treatment world it’s basically known that drug abuse is almost always a reaction to some kind of psychological trauma or disorder, and an awful lot of drugs (not just cocaine) play heavily with the dopamine pathways. The idea of dopamine as your brain’s signal that you’re safe fits about as neatly with that as can be.

(Of course, like everything in biology, dopamine also does about a gazillion other things, too, so it’s not quite that cut and dry, but it rhymes, at least.)

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