On Humans2 Loka 2025

From Alcohol to Antidepressants: What Drugs Teach Us About Brain Chemistry ~ Judy Grisel

Dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. We have all heard these terms. And these are not just scientific curiosities. Few are those who have never wondered if their brain chemicals are "just off balance".

So how accurate are the popular theories about these mythic molecules?

To guide us through the topic, I'm joined by Judy Grisel—an ex-addict and a world-leading neuroscientist of addiction.

We will discuss all the main elements of brain chemistry by using drugs and addictions as a window into the topic. Towards the end, we also search for ways to better help those who struggle with addiction.

As always, we finish with my guest's reflection on humanity.

DIG DEEPER

This episode is part 4 of this autumn's brain science series. See more

at ⁠⁠OnHumans.Substack.com⁠/brain⁠⁠

Judy Grisel’s book is Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction

Want to support the show? Join the club at Patreon.com/OnHumans.

FACT-CHECKING

No major mistakes have been found so far.
As a minor note, the SSRI study we mention in healthy volunteers primarily assessed cognitive processing (reinforcement learning/sensitivity) rather than self-reported “emotional flattening”; however, general blunting of emotional responses in healthy participants has been reported by earlier researchers.

If you spot an error in this or other episodes, please reach out on Substack or via email.

KEYWORDS

Names mentioned: Kent Berridge | Mark Lewis | Barbara Sahakian | Trevor Robbins

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Jaksot(112)

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The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part I: Lessons from the Modern World ~ Douglas P. Fry

History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we lear...

19 Kesä 47min

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Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators t...

14 Touko 46min

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The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In th...

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