Close your eyes and imagine ... the day he finally finished the race, the moment you came to the top of the mountain, 2,300 meters almost out of breath but you are there, you feel like God and think: I could die now. Seriously, can you?
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| the world and happy as a dwarf |
I'm not talking about the stupid things humans are capable of love, because that is the literature, I will tell you of what certain animals have proved able to get a little more of that which makes us experience a plus happiness.
Since the 50's it was observed that rats with electrodes implanted in certain brain regions (hypothalamus among others) were able to starve yourself to get more shock (ref. 1), even when familiar with stimulatory effects of the discharge were able to traverse most intense electric fences to get a discharge that would do for food. The same applies to monkeys, both work (in the press of a button or trigger a handle) in a compulsive way to get a "chute" of stimulants (heroin, for example) intravenously, just as they did with direct brain stimulation via electrodes at the cost of death (ref. 2).
Why this compulsive? What is special about this shock to the brain that makes chase at all costs? The electrodes were implanted in regions mesolimbic area (the amygdala is part of it) and the hippocampus, which are related to the dopaminergic reward system. (ref. 3). By directly stimulating these areas get the same result we would get after a good dinner , quench your thirst or spend the night with Brad Pitt (ahem), that is, pleasure. One reason for this behavior is as addictive (besides the obvious) is to circumvent the barriers of the tracks led directly activates the senses and the reward / pleasure centers. Moreover, the stimulus-reward does not produce satiety unless the electrode is located in areas other than the hippocampus (not related with reward) (ref. 4 ).
What about drugs? because you can already imagine that the mode of action is similar, in fact already long known that one of the reasons why drugs are addictive is because reward systems haywire ( be said that dopamine is not only involved in reward circuits, although one of the main neurotransmitters involved in this process.) However, since the 70's saw the influence that the environment was in drug self-administration in rats. When rats were isolated in individual cages with morphine drank more water than they were group, possibly because the latter experienced lower levels of stress (ref. 5 ) but argues Scicurious certain experimental design flaws that cast doubt on whether the interest by morphine was the drug both as to the sugar was mixed (sugar is like manna for rats), do not hesitate to watch the instructional video of the experiment, is in English but is worth seeing.
A curiosity on the subject of addiction is that the learning of behavior associated with "drugs" (in quotes because The same can be work, play, food, alcohol ...) makes it much more difficult to disengage. There is a brain mechanism of reward prediction that "remembers" which at the bar of that street or those friends you wore blind and calls you to repeat. For more information about this topic recommend to read the chapter on Charlie Rose Brain Series on addictions.
So after reading all this we can conclude that it is likely that today do not die of happiness (unless you decide to jump from the top of the mountain) but what is possible is killed by happiness. And if you still have doubts you can always check your horoscope for today.
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| Source: informationisbeautiful.net |
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