So what about the mice who where way over-exposed to TV during their childhood? Did they suffer from the same kind of reduction of dopamine receptor (D2)? Unfortunately the mouse TV study didn’t check, but it did find that the over-exposed mice were greater risk-takers (more impulsive).“The research by Johnson and Kenny examined whether exposure to the kind of high-fat, super high-calorie foods that floods the junk-food market are responsible for creating food-addicts in a similar way to drugs that alter the brain in ways that make stopping more difficult.”
“When the researchers looked deeper, they found that the brains of these rats suffered a significant reduction in the density of a specific kind of dopamine receptor (D2) in a brain part known as the striatum, the same kind of reduction common in drug addicted people and obese individuals. This receptor type is often thought to be important for regulation of impulses, both physical and otherwise. It therefore makes sense that losing this type of function would cause uncontrollable eating or drug taking.”
“While this research isn’t saying that compulsive eating, or obesity, are the same as drug addiction, it does strongly suggest that there are common mechanisms in both. More importantly, it reveals a common process that unfolds when over-exposure to the reward, in this case food, occurs. This tells us that there can likely be common pathways to these different addictive disorders…”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all ... d-dopamine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20348917
http://tvsmarter.wordpress.com/2014/03/ ... ce-and-tv/
And interestingly enough:
But a new study finds that the brain of those with addictions and those with ADHD are quite different:“People with high levels of the hormone dopamine in the brain, and low sensitivity to it, tend to be greater risk takers and may be more prone to addictive behavior, drug abuse and gambling, a study has found.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/ ... RE20100201
Note: R is the name of the most famous drug used to treat ADHD. The firewall on this website does not like it though, so R it is.“The findings also showed that although participants with ADHD had significantly less grey matter in the brain, and performed much worse in the attention tests than the healthy controls, they had similar levels of dopamine receptors in an area of the brain called the striatum. R raised dopamine levels in this area to the same degree.”
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/11/02 ... 61512.html
Since both addiction and ADHD are associated with risky behavior, it would be very interesting if the mouse study were replicated with the addition of analyzing the TV mice brains to see if how they compare with regular mice, addicted mice and ADHD mice.
http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/features/ ... y-behavior
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21499268