There is this concept of stimulus desensitization where, over time, the same stimulus feels less and less impactful. One example is where someone drinks for the first time and a shot or two is enough. Drinking more, they eventually build up tolerance to 3 or 4. This may lead to a position where they need more of the stimulus to get the same effect.
This is a common argument that leads to “too much of a good thing is a bad thing”. The idea: You get less and less enjoyment out of the things you enjoy if you experience them constantly. The dopamine response to the action reduces and is less enjoyable. This is where the concept of anti-dopamine weaponization comes in.
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Hijacking the brain with anti-dopamine
So far, we have covered the situation of people chasing things they enjoy, getting a dopamine rush, then needing more and more for the same rush over time. This sparked an idea for me… What if we could hijack the brain with a form of anti-dopamine that brings displeasure. The concept is that, over time, the unpleasurable feeling would be reduced and nullified to no feeling rather than unpleasantness. This would allow people to desensitize themselves to bad feelings caused by negative stimulus.
This would require much more work up-front where the negative stimulus would have to be endured, but could result in an eventual resistance to the stimulus and build a fortified body.
Do we have an anti-dopamine
Serotonin
Serotonin came to mind when thinking through what an anti-dopamine could be as it is a mood stabilizer and may be able to nullify negativity. The more I looked into this, the more I realized it would not work. High levels of serotonin will balance and mellow people out (no bad lows but also no good highs). Over time, if they body grows accustom to these elevated levels of serotonin and the supplementation is paused, I would expect extreme mood swings caused by the lower levels of stabilizer.
Cortisol
Cortisol is commonly referred to as the stress hormone, which is why it came to mind in this scenario. Maybe we can get people accustomed to stress and not feel that stress/anxiety any more! Unfortunately, this was also wrong… and it started at the root of my assumption. Cortisol doesn’t necessarily cause stress. Cortisol will increase glucose (more energy available) and sharpen attention. If cortisol spikes during an emergency, you will have ample energy and alertness, not necessarily break down with an anxiety attack every time. With ample energy and alertness, yet no physical emergency, the body will want to be moving but have no purpose or direction. That is generally the cause of the ‘stress’ feeling. With that being said, we don’t want to nullify our ability to spring into action with cortisol’s support, so that would not be a good anti-dopamine.
Norepinephrine
Norepinephrine also helps with alertness and focus but can lead to anxiety or agitation in excess. This happens by having too much alertness or focus on negatives rather than positives. While it may be interesting to try spiking anxiety and agitation levels to try to nullify them, the focus may instead land on positives and have the opposite outcome. Also, pushing people’s agitation button seems like a recipe for disaster.
Dynorphin
Dynorphin can cause dysphoria, stress-induced sadness, emotional numbness, and suppress dopamine release after stress. It is essentially what stops people from spiraling down a deep dopamine addiction. Increased levels lead to emotional heaviness, withdrawal, and low moods. This one is pretty close to what we are looking for specifically because it can directly cause dysphoria (feeling bad) without requiring other inputs.
Chemical Summary
Overall, the interaction between these chemicals and the various roles they play make it incredibly risky to experiment with for the purpose of desensitization. Side effects are likely to be vast. If I had to choose one, Dynorphin would be the most interesting to test in hopes of neutralizing dysphoria over time.
Flaws
Due to those interactions and inherent risk, this does not sound like an experiment worth exploring. Additionally, the base of this argument can be challenged. Negative feelings from negative stimuli often help avoid them in the future. If one did not feel negative impacts of negative stimuli, they may continue to put themselves in disadvantaged situations. Furthermore, if we were able to successfully create this compound and process where negative feelings were nullified, would we really even be human? The more we negate emotions, the more robotic and autonomous we become. Whether that is good or bad is up to the individual, but I’d like to think that would be a fairly undesirable outcome.
Curious on what other weird thoughts I’ve explored? Check them out!