Be Thankful For Your Dopamine
Dopamine is a compound that is usually regarded as the chemical that produces the feeling of happiness. The neurotransmitter is responsible for the brain’s pleasure center, not only regulating our emotional responses, but also enabling us to recognize rewards and take action to achieve them (Gibbons 2018). In fact, dopamine is such an important chemical in humans that its presence might actually be one of the leading causes of the development of language and cooperation between human individuals: the greatest fundamental difference between humans and apes. The article “Dopamine may have given humans our social edge over other apes,” by Ann Gibbons, examines how an increase in dopamine and a decrease in acetylchlorine, a neurochemical linked to dominant and territorial behavior, are the keys to why humans have developed such an advanced social abilities.
Mary Ann Raghanti, a biological anthropologist and researcher, compared the basal ganglias of 38 individuals from six different species: humans, tufted capuchins, pig-tailed macaques, olive baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees, focusing on the difference in levels of specific neurotransmitters that were present in the brain of these primates when they were alive. What she discovered was that both humans and great apes had increased levels of serotonin present compared to other primates, and that humans also had significantly higher levels of dopamine compared to great apes. This development in humans ultimately allowed for cooperation between individuals, giving us the upper hand in both hunting and gathering, as well as in mating. It is possible that this evolution was the start of humans taking over the world.
Original Article: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/dopamine-may-have-given-humans-our-social-edge-over-other-apes
Posted by: Grace Houghton
Blog 1, Group 1
02/14/2018
Blog 1, Group 1
02/14/2018
I never knew how big of a role dopamine plays in our system. I've learned from many previous classes, that dopamine is involved in the reward system, but that was the extent of my knowledge. If dopamine plays a large role in social abilities, then I wonder what would happen if dopamine levels increased in a species that is aggressive, or not sociable. I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if we took a group of animals and injected dopamine into them. For example, better fish would be an interesting model for this experiment, because they known to be aggressive and territorial. The article you found suggests that this group would better interact with each other, given an increase in dopamine.
ReplyDeletePosted by Angelina Weng (3)
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ReplyDeleteVery interesting. This leads me to wonder where dopamine is produced and released from. If dopamine plays such an important role in language development or cooperative behaviors then it would appear that tapping into this system of dopamine production could be beneficial for treating people with speech or behavioral problems.
ReplyDelete-Michael Magnant
I hear people use the word "dopamine" all the time and I do recognize what it is, but I did not know it was responsible for so much. Who knew it was one of the leading causes of the development of language and cooperation between human individuals? Evidently dopamine has a large effect on our bodies, but too much of anything isn't good for you. It makes sense that dopamine can be blamed for addiction in others (read about this awhile back).
ReplyDelete-Posted by Catherine Tsang (3)
I hear people use the word "dopamine" all the time and I do recognize what it is, but I did not know it was responsible for so much. Who knew it was one of the leading causes of the development of language and cooperation between human individuals? Evidently dopamine has a large effect on our bodies, but too much of anything isn't good for you. It makes sense that dopamine can be blamed for addiction in others (read about this awhile back).
ReplyDelete-Posted by Catherine Tsang (3)