Aug 4, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 22 segments
Dr. Kent Berridge spent 40 years at the University of Michigan asking why people keep chasing things that stopped making them happy. He's the neuroscientist who discovered that dopamine isn't…
Kent BerridgeGuest
Richard TaiteHost
I mean, just as you say, they take it for the pleasure of the drugs, for the social milieu, to fit in, um, for all the various reasons a person might, but it's not a sensitized want at that point.
Um, and many people, most people who start taking drugs are not going to develop sensitized wants.
Um, there's a lot of individual differences in vulnerability to sensitization of this dopamine system, and many people are fairly resistant at street doses, so they don't become very sensitized.
But some individuals are susceptible, some very, very susceptible, and if they're taking drugs, especially if they're taking them in sort of a binge-like fashion, you know, like on weekends, not on the weekdays, but then on the weekends again, sort of spaced apart binges, um, that's the ideal sort of recipe for in- developing sensitization of the brain mesolimbic dopamine system.
I mean, just as you say, they take it for the pleasure of the drugs, for the social milieu, to fit in, um, for all the various reasons a person might, but it's not a sensitized want at that point.
Um, and many people, most people who start taking drugs are not going to develop sensitized wants.
Um, there's a lot of individual differences in vulnerability to sensitization of this dopamine system, and many people are fairly resistant at street doses, so they don't become very sensitized.
But some individuals are susceptible, some very, very susceptible, and if they're taking drugs, especially if they're taking them in sort of a binge-like fashion, you know, like on weekends, not on the weekdays, but then on the weekends again, sort of spaced apart binges, um, that's the ideal sort of recipe for in- developing sensitization of the brain mesolimbic dopamine system.
Every episode on Radar is fully transcribed, speaker-labeled, and rich with metadata. Here is a taste of this one. Try Radar for free to see the rest.
3 of 5
Dopamine Myth Shattered
Turns out dopamine does something else entirely
Compulsive Shock-Seeking Rat
A rat keeps returning to electrified rod
GLP-1 Drugs Curb Cravings
New GLP-1 drugs quickly quiet addictive cravings
+2 more clips · 2 min 57 sec of audio in all
7 of 24
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
All 5 clips — the highlight moments, each cut as its own audio, with a title and a speaker
All 22 segments — the transcript broken into labeled sections, every ad read marked
All 24 topics — jump to every other episode discussing the same subject
Every related episode — other shows Radar links to this one
No account is needed to search Radar.
