Dopamine: Politics, Religion & Power

Last edited Sat May 28, 2016, 09:29 AM - Edit history (1)

[font color="navy" face="verdana"]Published on Aug 23, 2012
Power changes the brain triggering increased testosterone in both men and women. Testosterone and one of its by-products called 3-androstanediol, are addictive, largely because they increase dopamine in a part of the brain's reward system called the nucleus accumbens. Cocaine has its effects through this system also, and by hijacking our brain's reward system, it can give short-term extreme pleasure but leads to long-term addiction, with all that that entails.Unfettered power has almost identical effects.

Too much power - and hence too much dopamine - can disrupt normal cognition and emotion, leading to gross errors of judgment and imperviousness to risk, not to mention huge egocentricity and lack of empathy for others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/9228257/Like-baboons-our-elected-leaders-are-literally-addicted-to-power.html[/font]