Another hugely influential effect of dopamine addiction can be found in America’s obsession with guns. When I was a teenager I discovered that I was a pretty good shot with an air rifle and a shot gun so I decided to invest in the only firearm I was able to acquire, a .22 caliber air rifle. It might not have had the same kick as a .22 rifle, but it was just as engaging. I purchased it while working in the Forestry industry in Scotland – the same day as I began a week of leave at home back in London. At the railway station in Dumfries I was overcome by the craving to hold it. I removed it from its case and admired the perfect sheen of its curvaceous exterior. It was, I thought, beautiful. I couldn’t wait to test my skills shooting tiny plastic soldiers in the back yard. I soon found out it’s not acceptable in the UK to have an open carry firearm in public (I was just a kid!) better put that away.
In an article coauthored by Dr. James Olds, Director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, entitled “Addicted To Bang: The Neuroscience of the Gun” he, and co-author Steven Kotler, explore the allure of the gun in dopaminergic terms. Guns affect dopamine signaling in many ways. They are status symbols, they denote a sense of personal power and they contribute to an (often false) feeling of safety and security. The urge for safety, and conversely the fear of external threats, is largely governed by the operation of the Amygdala (a major component of the limbic system). It’s known colloquially, in some circles, as the Guard Dog, and governs our tendencies towards fear, tribalism, aggression and territorialism. The suitability of this epithet can be seen in the dog who “doggedly” protects their home and maintains allegiance to the pack. When the dog sees an intruder, it can’t wait to get its teeth into the maleficent. The problem is, there is a need for the teeth to be in physical proximity to the intruder for the bite to occur, and there are many obstacles to achieving this. From the guard dog’s perspective, it would be great to have a tooth that could be thrown at the infiltrator at high speed, thus circumventing the need for a chase and overcoming any other intervening geographic obstacles. This is a basic function that the gun affords.
Olds and Kotler outline how these attributes contribute to America’s gun problem and focus on the current fealty shown towards semi-automatic weapons. Their assertion is that it is the frequency with which these guns can be discharged that makes them especially alluring. This bolsters our previous discussion on the effects of rapid and repeated dopamine release on the establishment of dependence. It also explains the attachment shown, by many, towards bump-stocks (devices that use the recoil from firing the gun to cause the operator’s finger to pull the trigger multiple times in succession). There is no practical application for these devices outside their involvement in mass shootings, and their ability to stimulate the dopaminergic thrill of the bang. The military have much better solutions to the need for rapid fire technologies.
For those for whom these opportunities are out of reach there is always the thrill of the first-person-shooter computer game. While the addictive quality of games extends well beyond the bounds of this genre, it does provide the perfect example of limbic activation by performing a territory expanding activity. Another article in Psychology today describes an experiment performed by Allan Reiss and his coworkers at Stanford University. The article details the results of brain scans performed on subjects engaged in a simple video game. As described in the article, the game operated as follows:
“The video game involved a screen with a vertical dividing line and leftward-moving balls on the right-hand side, which the player could click to remove. When a ball hit the divider, it caused the divider to move slightly leftward, reducing the player’s “territory” on the left-hand side of the screen. Conversely, for each second that the area near the divider was kept clear of balls, it would move rightward, gaining territory for the player. The only instruction given was, “Click on as many balls as possible.” All players soon deduced the point of the game and adopted a click strategy that increased territory.”
The results showed the activation of key components of the forebrain’s pleasure circuit, primarily the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala. While both male and female subjects exhibited these effects, they were significantly stronger in men. There are indications that the pleasure responses in men illustrate their predilection towards the establishment and maintenance of territory. Additional PET studies on game playing illustrate the specific involvement of dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens under similar circumstances.
Another study entitled “The Neural Basis of Video Gaming” identifies a paradoxical effect in the brains of pathological gambling addicts. Their pleasure centres were activated when they lost money. Other studies show this to be a consistent feature in the experience of compulsive computer game players of all stripes. If losing is pleasurable it follows that a subject will chase both the winning and the losing scenarios resulting in extended game playing sessions. The principle is often used in advertising materials for computer games that draw the potential buyer in using terms like “this game will keep you up all night”. While compulsive game playing is good for the game manufacturer, it is also at the root of a disturbing trend towards men playing video games instead of getting jobs. While the American Psychiatric Association were unwilling to include game play as a recognized addiction in 2013’s DSM V, it can only be a matter of time before such a classification is established.