Dopamine Drives Thrill Seekers
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Our need for stimulation is connected to hormonal activity in the brain, which explains why people who constantly crave stimulation are in danger of addictive behavior such as drug abuse or gambling.
The urge to actively seek out new thrills is a personality trait that psychologists have known about for years, but up until now they have been unable to prove how this urge relates to hormonal activity in the brain.
An international team of scientists from the University of Copenhagen, University of Aarhus and University of Tokyo has demonstrated that this hunger for stimulation is greater among people who possess more of the gratification hormone, dopamine, in the brain.
The research team, led by Professor of Neurobiology and Pharmacology Dr. Albert Gjedde of the University of Copenhagen and Dr. Arne Møller from CFIN at Aarhus University, used PET scans to map the areas in the brain where dopamine was active among healthy volunteers. Drs. Gjedde and Moller were quoted as saying that the measurement of dopamine revealed the test subjects who had the strongest urge to seek out new and thrilling experiences had both more dopamine in the brain and more areas in the brain where dopamine was active.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 1, 2010
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