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From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context

When “hijacked” by compulsive behaviors that affect the reward and stress centers of the brain, functional changes in the dopamine circuitry occur as the consequence of pathological brain adaptation. As a brain correlate of mental health, dopamine has a central functional role in behavioral regulati...

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Autor principal: Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10525914/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37760910
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11092469
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author Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
author_facet Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
author_sort Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
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description When “hijacked” by compulsive behaviors that affect the reward and stress centers of the brain, functional changes in the dopamine circuitry occur as the consequence of pathological brain adaptation. As a brain correlate of mental health, dopamine has a central functional role in behavioral regulation from healthy reward-seeking to pathological adaptation to stress in response to adversity. This narrative review offers a spotlight view of the transition from healthy reward function, under the control of dopamine, to the progressive deregulation of this function in interactions with other brain centers and circuits, producing what may be called an anti-reward brain state. How such deregulation is linked to specific health-relevant behaviors is then explained and linked to pandemic-related adversities and the stresses they engendered. The long lockdown periods where people in social isolation had to rely on drink, food, and digital rewards via the internet may be seen as the major triggers of changes in motivation and reward-seeking behavior worldwide. The pathological adaptation of dopamine-mediated reward circuitry in the brain is discussed. It is argued that, when pushed by fate and circumstance into a physiological brain state of anti-reward, human behavior changes and mental health is affected, depending on individual vulnerabilities. A unified conceptual account that places dopamine function at the centre of the current global mental health context is proposed.
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spelling pubmed-105259142023-09-28 From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context Dresp-Langley, Birgitta Biomedicines Review When “hijacked” by compulsive behaviors that affect the reward and stress centers of the brain, functional changes in the dopamine circuitry occur as the consequence of pathological brain adaptation. As a brain correlate of mental health, dopamine has a central functional role in behavioral regulation from healthy reward-seeking to pathological adaptation to stress in response to adversity. This narrative review offers a spotlight view of the transition from healthy reward function, under the control of dopamine, to the progressive deregulation of this function in interactions with other brain centers and circuits, producing what may be called an anti-reward brain state. How such deregulation is linked to specific health-relevant behaviors is then explained and linked to pandemic-related adversities and the stresses they engendered. The long lockdown periods where people in social isolation had to rely on drink, food, and digital rewards via the internet may be seen as the major triggers of changes in motivation and reward-seeking behavior worldwide. The pathological adaptation of dopamine-mediated reward circuitry in the brain is discussed. It is argued that, when pushed by fate and circumstance into a physiological brain state of anti-reward, human behavior changes and mental health is affected, depending on individual vulnerabilities. A unified conceptual account that places dopamine function at the centre of the current global mental health context is proposed. MDPI 2023-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10525914/ /pubmed/37760910 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11092469 Text en © 2023 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context
title From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context
title_full From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context
title_fullStr From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context
title_full_unstemmed From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context
title_short From Reward to Anhedonia-Dopamine Function in the Global Mental Health Context
title_sort from reward to anhedonia-dopamine function in the global mental health context
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10525914/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37760910
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11092469
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