Submitted by giuliomagnifico t3_11ztk6c in science
The addiction system must have been an evolutionary Advantage for it to be so prevalent today. I suspect it has to do with something like thrill seeking and impulsiveness making for better warriors and increasing the chance of surviving deadly conflicts.
Those traits may not be as well suited for a more peaceful, agrarian society.
While it's a difficult hypothesis to examine in a controlled scientific setting, people acting on addiction has been evaluated in many studies to be linked to a sedentary lifestyle as well. So, it can be similarly hypothesized that active lifestyles hinder people with addictive genes from acting on them.
Anecdotally as someone who is personally genetically predisposed to addiction, I find myself to be much more focused when active, and as such have found a positive feedback loop on physical activity/often repetitive tasks with a level of thinking to be more focused than my peers while doing continuous focused work.
There is a viable link as well between ADHD and dopamine, and a similar link between ADHD and hyper focus while doing certain tasks.
As a result, perhaps additional research could focus on the benefits of dopamine on hunter/gatherer and agrarian tasks, and how ADHD and addiction are modern responses to changes in dopamine release from dietary change and changes in movement. There may be benefits to the mechanisms that modernly result in addiction, perhaps overeating and eating disorders, ADHD or other dopamine expressions that persisted through evolution, where those side effects were either null or mild compared to the benefits of dopamine release.
[removed]
I’m pretty sure I’ve never met a person with addiction issues that didn’t also have ADHD/ADD. If we could do better with diagnosis and holistic/family-based treatment for kids as young as possible, the positive impact could be astounding.
Medication for ADHD massively reduces the risk of developing addiction, and the younger treatment is started, the greater the reduction. Early diagnosis and treatment for ADHD is so important.
I’m a big supporter of ADHD meds (on vyvanse for 2 years now) but behavioural modifications and healthy coping skills learned in childhood could potentially eliminate the need for meds later on.
Do you have a source for that? Genuinely curious just because neuroimaging studies have shown that starting medication at a young enough age can potentially reverse some of the structural and functional changes in the ADHD brain, effectively making it more like a non-ADHD brain,
So I wouldn't be surprised if early treatment reduces ADHD symptoms or need for treatment later in life, but I'd wonder whether that could be a result of the medication rather than behavioural modification.
Don't assume from this addiction is genetic. The behavioral part of addiction is generally learned from family, ergo a large portion of addicts will share similar genes because they are descendent from addicts that lived centuries ago.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
[removed]
Nice post thanks Gina
Gamp
More to what we know than meets the eye
[removed]
>the findings also reinforce the role of the dopamine system in addiction
Some people who take narcotics for chronic pain do not become addicted. Could it be that their "reward" is simply a reduction in their level of pain?
OregonTripleBeam t1_jde2xf2 wrote
Hopefully this research can be used to create effective harm reduction strategies.