How we get hooked
Addictive drugs are like a cool spring in the desert or a juicy apple in famine, using pathways in our brains designed to provide life-saving learning about basic needs such as food, safety, and sex, Harvard Provost Steven Hyman said Tuesday evening (Dec. 7) in a talk at the Harvard Allston Education Portal. Hyman, the latest speaker in a lecture series designed to open Harvard’s academic workings to neighbors in nearby communities, conjured up early humanity in explaining what makes addictive drugs so irresistible. These drugs hook us by mimicking brain chemicals such as dopamine that evolved to keep us alive in an uncertain and primitive world, where a key memory like the location of a productive hunting ground or a water source could mean the difference between life and death. The brain was designed to cement such memories and lift them from recollections of humdrum daily activities by creating a pleasurable...