Andrew Huberman Explains Dopamine: Why Wanting Feels Better Than Having

[00:00:00]Yeah, basically. So, real quick lesson in dopamine. Dopamine is a neurochemical. Some people call it a neurotransmitter or neuromodulator.

[00:00:07]Let's just say it's a chemical, okay?

[00:00:08]It's a chemical.

[00:00:09]>> So, it's a liquid.

[00:00:10]>> It's a Yeah, basically it's released from neurons. Neurons are nerve cells.

[00:00:15]And it's going to bind to the next It's going to park in a parking spot we call a receptor on the next nerve cell and trigger the activity of that nerve cell.

[00:00:23]Nerve cells communicate through electricity and chemicals. The chemicals stimulate electricity.

[00:00:27]>> Okay.

[00:00:28]>> And neurons can make the next neuron more active. They can make the next neuron less active. So, this is important. In fact, a good kind of mechanical example is if you flex your bicep, you are inhibiting you are preventing the neurons that flex your tricep. They are antagonistic muscles.

[00:00:45]>> Got it.

[00:00:46]>> And as just kind of a parallel where you can get to, when you for instance smell something you like, >> Mhm.

[00:00:55]>> it's what's called an appetitive response. It's kind of appetite.

[00:00:59]>> Mhm.

[00:00:59]>> That inhibits the repulsion response.

[00:01:02]>> I see.

[00:01:02]>> smell vomit or something really putrid, you tend to retract and it tends to shut down at the same time the circuits that would bring you closer to something. So, it's you know, every circuit in the brain is like that. There's a push and a pull, an accelerator and a brake.

[00:01:17]>> And if you do one, it limits the other.

[00:01:19]>> Yeah, think of it like a seesaw. One goes up, the other goes down. You know, everything from if you step on a pin, you move your foot up and guess what?

[00:01:25]What happens? Your other leg automatically extends. Okay? This is called a monosynaptic stretch reflex. If you touch a fish on the side, there's a big old neuron, giant neuron called the Mauthner neuron. And what does the fish do? It heads in the opposite direction.

[00:01:40]This is just a a You know, these circuits have been selected for because the dumb fish that went toward the thing that touched it probably got eaten.

[00:01:48]So, all these responses are hardwired responses. This chemical dopamine exists in a couple different places in your brain. It has several roles. The most important ones to know about are that it's involved in generating movement.

[00:02:01]People with Parkinson's lose the neurons that create dopamine >> Okay.

[00:02:05]>> in an area called the substantia [ __ ] If you were to cut open a human brain, you'd see two dark areas at the bottom of the brain. And in Latin, [ __ ] dark, black, is down at the bottom of the brain. And those are the neurons that degenerate. And there's a picture of it, but maybe we can find it's really impressive. You can see even without a microscope. If you just say um I don't know if you said like actual brain tissue or something. Um There you go. Look. So, see that first um that first one. Look at there.

[00:02:32]That's probably without any staining.

[00:02:34]You're just looking at the brain with no microscope. In Parkinson's, those degenerate. You can see it on the right.

[00:02:39]And what happens is when they're So, dopamine is critical for movement. And it's important to keep that in mind because the other thing that dopamine does is it's involved in a a set of brain circuits that are involved in motivation. So, if you think about any animal, human, dog, rat, cat, monkey, bat, that animal has three choices for movement. You can move toward something, you can stay still, or you can move backward, right? Dopamine is involved in motivation, not reward. So, when you like what's something that you really enjoy doing? Um >> Making quesadillas.

[00:03:13]>> Making quesadillas.

[00:03:15]When you get the ingredients and you put them out, >> Yeah.

[00:03:18]>> your dopamine is starting to rise.

[00:03:21]>> Yeah, I'm feeling it.

[00:03:21]>> Okay. If you're a If you're somebody who likes gambling, it's on the way to Vegas. You're walking in. You're getting your chips. It's the feel of the chips.

[00:03:29]The dopamine's going up, okay? This is a hardwired set of circuits that were designed to have us do things that were adaptive. So, dopamine starts to rise in anticipation of food when we're hungry, cold when we're hot, heat when we're cold, sex when we're horny, right? Right? And it's going to be involved in anything that we think is going to bring a feeling or a resource.

[00:03:53]>> So, a lot of dopamine is based on perception?

[00:03:56]>> Absolutely, you nailed it. In fact In fact, whether or not we're talking about Bitcoin, US dollars, likes on Instagram or X, followers, views, or any of that, the currency is dopamine.

[00:04:13]>> Got it.

[00:04:13]>> There's one currency of motivation. So, dopamine is about wanting and craving, not about having. Then, something happens. You make the case of the >> on. Let me slow it down just real quick and just say that cuz I sometimes it's hard for me, so I know it might be hard for some of our listeners, but so the dopamine is is based on the motivation.

[00:04:30]So, it's not about like the fact that when I'm sitting there and I'm making my case of the like that's the that's the dopamine is like knowing that I'm going to get the case of the soon. That's dopamine. But then when I actually get the case of the what?

[00:04:43]>> Okay, so depends on the case of the.

[00:04:45]Let's Let's go with three different scenarios.

[00:04:47]>> Okay.

[00:04:48]>> And we could change out case of the here for jackpot at the >> casino >> sex >> winning a UFC fight or winning the bet on the UFC fight.

[00:04:57]>> Being nervous about asking a girl out and then actually doing it.

[00:05:00]>> Comedy when you move to crowd work and you're like, this feels like I'm out on a tightrope. Okay, yeah.

[00:05:05]>> So, any of those things. Anything where there's a potential payoff. Then something happens. Let's Let's use the case of the example cuz it's it's straightforward.

[00:05:15]You have the case of the.

[00:05:16]>> Mhm.

[00:05:17]>> And it's pretty good. Tastes like the case of the you usually make.

[00:05:20]>> Mhm.

[00:05:20]>> Okay, what happens? Your dopamine starts dropping a little bit. Not a lot, but you're okay. Yeah, it's it starts dropping.

[00:05:27]Let's say, just by way of example, you eat four case of the.

[00:05:32]Each time, it's going to be a little bit less dopamine from the actual eating of the case of the.

[00:05:37]>> Yeah, the second case of the you can barely even taste it sometimes.

[00:05:40]>> Let's say you bite into the case of the and it's like, "Ugh, this tastes weird. Like there's something off here. Dopamine plummets.

[00:05:49]So, how much dopamine you get depends on the anticipation minus what you actually get. Something called reward prediction error. But the language doesn't really matter. That's a bunch of nerd speak for when an experience is worse than you expected, your dopamine drops below where it started.

[00:06:05]>> Wow.

[00:06:06]>> When an experience is better than you expected, surprise, it's way above where you started. And it stays up there for a while.

[00:06:16]>> Mhm.

[00:06:16]>> So, the dopamine system loves surprise.

[00:06:18]Now, all of this is related to learning.

[00:06:20]This is an ancient system designed for you to learn where are the payoffs?

[00:06:25]Where's the water? Where's the food?

[00:06:27]Where are the mates? Where's the money?

[00:06:29]Where's the resources?

[00:06:30]These are ancient circuits that we are doing non-ancient things with. And so, for instance, if you do tour you do comedy tours, right? When you do your comedy tours and like you really nail it one night, like really nail it. It does two things. It raises your baseline level of dopamine. So, the next time you go out, you have confidence, right?

[00:06:50]You're still feeling that.

[00:06:51]>> Ah.

[00:06:51]>> But it also raises the threshold for dopamine, right? Now, it's harder to get dopamine. You can't have the same experiences that you had prior to that really killer night and get the same amount of dopamine that you used to.

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