Comments: This article emphasizes that dopamine equates with ‘wanting,’ which can be separated from ‘liking.’ Reward is not just dopamine. It appears that dopamine is not really the reward molecule; rather it is the craving neurotransmitter. This is why someone with an addiction can crave the drug, or porn, but not really like it. This […]
Read More… from (L) Simple Pleasures: Liking vs. Wanting, by Kent Berridge (2004)
Comments: Good article on novelty-seekers and addiction. Touches on how fear and anxiety can rewarding. Both novelty and anxiety can raise dopamine and adrenaline (epinephrine, norepinephrine). Porn users seek out both for a bigger buzz.
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Read More… from (L) Desperately Seeking Sensation: Fear, Reward, and the Human Need for Novelty
Desperately Seeking Sensation: Fear, Reward, and the Human Need for Novelty
Neuroscience Begins to Shine Light on the Neural Basis of Sensation-Seeking
By Brenda Patoine
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Read More… from (L) Desperately Seeking Sensation: Fear, Reward, and the Human Need for Novelty
How will you fill your pair-bonder “hole?” In recent years, scientists have been studying a fascinating mammal in greater depth: the prairie vole. There are many closely related vole species, but some species mate for life while others don’t form pair bonds at all (like most mammals). The prairie vole belongs to that curious 3 […]
Read More… from Pair Bonding 101: Beware Novelty-As-Aphrodisiac (2011)
A team of scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has found that a specific stress hormone, the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), is key to the development and maintenance of alcohol dependence in animal models. 
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Read More… from (L) Stress Hormone CRF Key to Development of Alcohol Dependence (2010)
By Steven Stocker, NIDA NOTES Contributing Writer
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Comments: As with other studies, this one states that video-game addiction exists, and it is a growing phenomenon. 
[Article in Portuguese] Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2008 Jun;30(2):156-67. Abreu CN, Karam RG, Góes DS, Spritzer DT. Instituto de Psiquiatria, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brasil. [email protected]
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Read More… from Internet and Videogame Addiction: A Review (2008)
COMMENT: Stress can increase vulnerability to addiction. 
Chronic Stress, Drug Use, and Vulnerability to Addiction
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Read More… from Chronic Stress, Drug Use, and Vulnerability to Addiction (2008)
Morality lies not where we think it does This post is about morality, but not about a particular moral agenda. It’s about how your inner compass works. Whatever your moral code, if you or your loved ones occasionally do things that violate it, read on. Moral decisions (including sexual ones) do not invoke a specific […]
Read More… from Sex and Morality: A Debate Between Competing Neurons (2011, updated research list)
Here’s one man’s experience: