The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good PDF

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A leading brain scientist's look at the neurobiology of pleasure - and how pleasures can become addictions. Whether eating, taking drugs, engaging in sex, or doing good deeds, the pursuit of pleasure is a central drive of the human animal. In The Compass of Pleasure Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David J. Linden explains how pleasure affects us at the most fundamental level: in our brain. As he did in his award-winning book, The Accidental Mind, Linden combines cutting-edge science with entertaining anecdotes to illuminate the source of the behaviors that can lead us to ecstasy but that can easily become compulsive. Why are drugs like nicotine and heroin addictive while LSD is not? Why has the search for safe appetite suppressants been such a disappointment? The Compass of Pleasure concludes with a provocative consideration of pleasure in the future, when it may be possible to activate our pleasure circuits at will and in entirely novel patterns.

Direct download links available for PRETITLE The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] POSTTITLE

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Audible Audio Edition
• Listening Length: 6 hours and 33 minutes
• Program Type: Audiobook
• Version: Unabridged
• Publisher: Gildan Media Corp
• Audible.com Release Date: May 9, 2011
• Whispersync for Voice: Ready
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0053F3E5A

The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good PDF

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"There are variants in genes that turn down the function of dopamine signaling within the pleasure circuit. For people who carry these gene variants, their muted dopamine systems lead to blunted pleasure circuits, which in turn affects their pleasure-seeking activities. ... Any one of us could be an addict at any time. Addiction is not fundamentally a moral failing -- it's not a disease of weak-willed losers." -- David Linden

Many of us humans are aware of our personal and ambiguous relationship to pleasure, which we spend a great amount of time and resources pursuing. As we deal with other influencing forces, however, we also tend to regulate pleasure. A key motivator of our lives, pleasure is central to learning, since we find food, water, and sex motivating to survive and pass our genetic DNA onto future generations. Certain varieties of pleasure sensations are regarded as specially guarded areas. Many of our most important rituals involving prayer, music, dance, and meditation create types of transcendent pleasure that has become deeply intrenched in human social and cultural practice. The skillful neuroscientist and articulate author sums it up, "While most people are able to achieve a certain degree of pleasure with only moderate indulgence, those with blunted dopamine systems are driven to overdo it. In order to get to that same set point of pleasure that others would get to easily -- maybe with two drinks at the bar and a laugh with friends -- you need six drinks at the bar to get the same thing."

Our religions, our educational and legal systems, are all deeply concerned with controlling pleasure, a mind over body notion.

The Compass of Pleasure, by David Linden

From an evolutionarily psychological perspective, it's easy to see the raw importance of pleasure driving human behavior. There's a lot in this book to flesh out and support that idea. Relying largely on recent studies which use a crude but non-intrusive scanning device, or on animal studies with probes, Linden explains how the brain handles pleasure. Here's a small example: "... A different group of neurons within the arculate nucleus, those that use the neurotransmitter called NPY, are unaffected by the vagus nerve-nucleus tractus solatarius pathway, but are inhibited by circulating leptin. Like the POMC-containing neurons, these NPY cells also send axons to both the paraventricular nucleus and the lateral hypothalamus. But their actions are opposite to those of the POMC neurons: The NPY cells inhibit the paraventricular nucleus and excite the lateral hypothalamus..."

Usually the gist is summarized at the end, thank goodness, and even if you don't become a molecular biologist, you come away with a lot. The brain, we learn is a Rube Goldberg contraption involving triggers, signals, thresholds, circuits, feedback loops, receptors, transmitters, reuptake valves, modulators and back up systems.

Linden is as interested in addiction as he is in pleasure. He makes an argument that gambling, drugs, sex, and food can take on the biological characteristics of addiction: development of tolerance, leading to decreased pleasure and increased craving. "Pleasure," he says, changes to "wanting." This is particularly well covered in regards to drugs and food.

Here's a tidbit: dopamine-goosing pleasure drugs (heroin, cocaine) are highly addictive, especially when injected or smoked because the hit is big and fast.