Discovered just half a century ago by Swedish chemists Arvid Carlsson and Nils-Åke Hillarp, dopamine has not only turned out to be the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasurable sensations. It is also involved in the coordination of muscle movements, in decision-making, and in the regulation of learning and memory. Without it we would not feel curious or motivated.
Personality.Do you consider yourself shy? Outgoing? Unsafe? Brave? According to a study carried out by researchers from the Charité University Clinic in Berlin and published inNature Neuroscience In 2008, the amount of dopamine contained in a person’s brain amygdala could define whether they are calm and confident (low concentration) or fearful and prone to stress (high concentration).
Overweight.Not all of us give the same pleasure to savor a chocolate cake. Obese people have fewer dopamine receptors in their brain and, therefore, need to eat more to compensate for this deficit and feel the same satisfaction as ordinary mortals, according to a study published recently in the journalScience.
Passion for risk.That in adolescence there are more risks than in other stages of life is a fact. What we did not know until recently was that this behavior can be attributed to an increase in the amount of dopamine in certain areas of the adolescent brain that causes them to err in their expectations and predict excessively “positive” results of their actions.
Question of status.Using neuroimaging techniques, scientists have shown that the higher a person’s social status, the greater the number of dopamine D2 receptors in their brain and, therefore, the more motivated and satisfied they feel.
Creativity.According to an article recently published inPLoS ONEVery creative people have a lower density of dopamine D2 receptors in the thalamus, an area of the brain responsible for filtering stimuli that reach the cerebral cortex. This prevents some signals from being filtered and increases the flow of information to the brain, allowing connections to be established between concepts that others elude.
Memory.Dopamine also controls the duration of memory, that is, if information is kept for only 10 or 12 hours in the brain and disappears, or if it lasts longer. ? If we believe that what we learn is important, dopamine activates the hippocampus so that it is archived ?, explains Jorge Medina, a researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires and co-author of the discovery. “If, on the contrary, what we learn does not satisfy us, the memory is diluted”.
