That’s a quote from a recent reader, and I think it’s a fabulous metaphor. The idea is that brains and the chemicals that run them come from molecules that have been part of the evolutionary marketplace for a very long time. So the “code” that our brains use to operate (and to have fun) is easily mimicked by compounds out there in the world. When we find those compounds and consume them, we hack our own nervous systems.
Indeed, our major neurotransmitters are extremely old. So are the neuropeptides (which include opioids). I read somewhere that male lobsters stand up and rear their claws when they get a spurt of the peptide vasopressin…which comes from their own brainstems. Vasopressin is an important neurochemical for inter-male aggression in humans! A humbling thought. So not only do we share neurochemicals with extremely ancient ancestors and extremely distant cousins, we even share their functions.
Now pre-hominids weren’t much good at extracting stuff from plants. Hands are really useful for that. But hominids have been around for a couple of million years, and even the period of agrarian civilization, about 5-10,000 years old, is plenty of time to experiment with the profusion of plants that make feel-good chemicals. The fact that neurochemicals are cobbled together from existing molecules, as pointed out by the same reader, is hugely important. That’s what improves the odds that our favourite neuromodulators will have cousins in the plant world. All we had to do was find them, refine them, and eat them (or smoke them or snort them or shoot them).
According to Berridge’s theory, dopamine doesn’t make you feel good, but it makes you feel engaged and excited. It’s opioids that make you feel good. The fact that opioids automatically release more dopamine means that liking and wanting are closely bonded. Unfortunately, though opioids increase dopamine flow, the reverse is not the case. Dopamine flow just makes you try harder. Hence, whether you get your dopamine rush from methamphetamine, coke, from planning your next batch of cookies, from anticipating the next rib, or from the vicious cycle of addiction itself, there is no pot of gold waiting at the end of that rainbow. Unless you put it there yourself.
We are indeed a species who hacks our own brains with the stuff we find lying around in nature. And since dopamine and opioids are so crucial to the reward system, it was almost inevitable that we’d find them, use them to hack our brains, use them some more because they work, and then start to work hard to get them. Thus, it’s almost inevitable that we’d evolve into druggies. And, I suppose, just as bad backs are an unfortunate byproduct of upright posture, it’s almost inevitable that many of us would become drug addicts.
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