Chemical warfare

Dopamine controls the brain’s response to pleasure and addiction may be the result of a genetic fault in its make-up, says Sharon Ní Chonchúir

YOU may not have heard of dopamine but the chemical plays an important role in our lives. It’s there in the sigh of pleasure as we sip cold white wine; at the end of a long day. it’s there when we tuck gleefully into a bowl of hot, creamy pasta; it’s there when we have sex, and when we shop; buy something new at the shops and when we win big at the horses. Dopamine is a key chemical component of the ‘feel-good factor’. But there’s more to it. Experts say it has a dominant role in how people become addicted.

“Dopamine is one of 60 or so neurotransmitters in the brain and one of the main transmitters on the brain reward pathway, also known as the mesolimbic dopamine system,” says Professor Carlton Erickson, the director of the addiction research centre at the University of Texas, who is speaking at this week’s Neuroscience and Evidence-based Practices for Addiction and Recovery (NEAR) Conference in Co Wicklow.