Love is the drug

摘要

Songwriters frequently compare love and addiction. Addicts compare wanting drugs to wanting sex. And scientists who study addiction are now beginning to agree with both. Stimulants like cocaine act on the brain's dopamine system, and so mimic the thrill of desire and anticipation. Depressant drugs like heroin, on the other hand, produce the opposite kind of pleasure-a dreamy satiation and freedom from pain, caused by their action on the brain's opioid system. A speedball, a cocktail of cocaine and heroin, can be likened to a rapid, hyped-up sex simulation, moving rapidly from desire to climax. Because of this powerful ability to simulate the most intense thrills, it is often said that drugs can hijack the brain's pleasure, reward and motivation systems, leaving addicts overwhelmed by craving for the drug, and willing to do anything for their next fix. It's racy parallels like these that have led a few intrepid souls to stake their reputations on the idea that we could perhaps learn more about addiction by studying sex and love than the drugs themselves. If we want to know how drugs derail our pleasure and reward systems, we first need to know what those systems are, and how they behave. According to neuroscientist Annarose Childress, what those systems usually do is control our sexual behaviour.