The Nucleus accumbens is an area of the brain that is responsible for many things including reward, pleasure, reinforcement learning, addiction, and reputation perception. That definition in and of itself should make it clear why the accumbens is deserving of blame. But a recent study in August of 2013 completed by Meshi, D., Morawetz, C. , Heekeren, R., tested nucleus accumbens activation and Facebook usage. In this study experimenters monitored the level of activation in the nucleus accumbens when a person received positive feedback about themselves and other individuals in the form of a video. They found that the amount of activation in the Nucleus accumbens was highest when the person received positive feedback about themselves. Furthermore, the group of individuals who used Facebook most had the highest degree of activation. This essentially indicates that reputation upkeep or positive feedback is a prime driver in the use of Facebook. So in the end the 95% of users can say that pictures, and "staying connected" are the only reason why you spend hours on Facebook instead of studying for Pysiology, but for some of us I think our nucleus accumbens would beg to differ!
References
Meshi, D., Morawetz, C. , Heekeren, R. Nucleus accumbens
response to gains in reputation for the self relative to gains for others
predicts social media use. Journals of
Frontiers in Neuroscience. 2013 Aug 29;7:439. doi:
10.3389/fnhum.2013.00439.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/addicted-facebook-fame-blame-your-brains-nucleus-accumbens-8C11036930
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting blog! I've never heard of "nucleus accumbens" and I guess they are to blame for my endless hours on Facebook! After reading the blog, I was interested to see how our nucleus accumbens work within our body and learned that they are found at the top of the brainstem, in the midbrain. To elicit the “reward” feeling, dopamine, a neurotransmitter released by the VTA, binds to the G-protein coupled receptor (Beaulieu and Gainetdinov 2011). Dopamine modulates activity of neurons within our nucleus accumbens, increasing their activity! Interestingly, while investigating about the nucleus accumbens, I learned that drugs like cocaine and amphetamine increase the levels of dopamine, enhancing the activity of the nucleus accumbens. I can’t imagine how much time drug abusers might spend on these social media sites!
Bealieu JM, Gainetdinov RR. 2011. The physiology, signaling, and pharmacology of dopamine receptors. Pharmacol Rev 63(1):182-217.
This was a very interesting post. I actually did research that pertained to the nucleus accumbens reward pathway in undergrad. We looked at the rewarding effects of nicotine on conditioned place preference in rats. Research suggests that nicotine metabolites stimulate the release of dopamine via nicotinic receptors in the nucleus accumbens, contributing to tobacco dependence (Green, Crooks, Bardo, and Dwoskin, 2001). In my undergraduate research we found that raising rats in different environments (isolated vs. enriched) played a role on the nicotine rewards, tested by conditioned place preference. Check out the research below on conditioned place preference.
ReplyDeleteGreen TA, Crooks PA, Bardo MT, Dwoskin LP. 2001. Contributory role for nornicotine in nicotine neuropharmacology: nornicotine-evoked [3H]dopamine overflow from rat nucleus accumbens slices. Biochem Pharmacol 15;62(12):1597-603.
Bardo MT, Bevins RA. 2000. Conditioned place preference: what does it add to our preclinical understanding of drug reward? Psychopharmacology 153:31–43.
Doan and Dominique are on to something. Dopamine neurons are part of the reward pathway in our brain, that is something we learn early on in Brain and Behavior classes. When the release of Dopamine is stimulated, we get a feeling of euphoria, and that pleasurable feeling is something that we look to experience again and again. This Dopamine reward pathway is, indeed, a huge part of humans' tendency to become addicted to certain things, much like tobacco and nicotine, as Dominique pointed out. Di Chiara, et. al. (2004) confirm that microdialysis studies point to the "shell" of the nucleus accumbens as a primary site of extracellular DA transmission, and addictive drugs tend to target that area. So, this may present the question, is it possible to become addicted to Facebook, and if so, what are the implications of that possibility? This would make for a very interesting study!
ReplyDeleteReference:
Di Chiara, G., Bassareo, V., Fenu, S., De Luca, M., Spina, L., Cadoni, C., & ... Lecca, D. (2004). Dopamine and drug addiction: the nucleus accumbens shell connection. Neuropharmacology, 47 Suppl 1227-241.