Hijacked

on a random sunny day, a thought came to mind. it was really more of a question than a thought; and naturally, me being me, it has to do with food. (what else, right?! :P) so here's the question: do i love cookies so much so that i crave for it one too many times, or do i consume it too often that it became a habit (or could it be coupled with certain memories in the past) which made me declare my love for it?

now if you're waiting for me to reveal the answer, sorry, you're gonna be disappointed: i don't have one. but my guess is, it's probably a little bit of both. you see, apparently, my brain is hijacked - by this puny little molecule called dopamine.

[uhm. before i go on, it should be noted that i'm not citing any solid references or textbook, i'm writing what i vaguely retained from the courses i took years ago. hence what i'm about to write might not be entirely scientifically accurate or detailed, so don't sue if i made some mistakes. you're welcomed to correct me though.]

right. back to dopamine. this is how it works (i think). you engage in a pleasurable activity, in this case it'd be eating cookies, and dopamine the feel-good neurotransmitter is excreted in this part of brain called the limbic system that is responsible of your emotions and memories (hippocampus part of the limbic system? can't remember. jun?). naturally it makes you feel good (duh), and so it "encourages" you to do more of whatever it is that you're doing. this dopamine little culprit motivates you to eat more cookies, and every time you eat cookies, dopamine will be released. at some point though, your brain will be saturated with dopamine, and so to prevent hyper-activation, your neurons begin to remove the dopamine receptors, without which the dopamine cannot bind to and hence won't give you any feel-good effect. sounds like a pretty logical self-regulated system and there's nothing to worry about, right? wrong! with the decreased number of dopamine receptors, you won't get as much of the effect or "high" you're probably used to by now, so you need more dopamine to create the same effect. and what do you do to get more dopamine? why, eat more cookies, of course. :D

there, that's pretty much the outline of the neurobiological explanation of cravings and addiction. it's way more complicated, obviously, but that's the gist of it. it works the same way for any kind of addiction, like coffee (another of mine, only 18 times worse than my cookie craze), drugs, you name it.

anyway. back to my question, which is still unresolved. but no matter, it's giving me a headache after all this thinking. i'm gonna go make some coffee. and maybe... have a cookie (while i ponder more on this). :D