Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Dopamine and social behaviour

Dopamine and social behaviour:
What role does dopamine play in social interactions and relationships?

Overview

Dopamine affecting social interactions scenario

Imagine that you have just met two different people. One person was highly enthusiastic in talking to you and you immediately connected. You suddenly have this desire to continue interacting with this person in the future, and the other person was overly rude and blunt to you for no foreseeable reason and you just want to remove yourself from the situation.

Dopamine role on social interaction largely revolves around re-engaging with the stimuli again through the use of the reward-seeking theory
Deficits in our dopamine pathway's[grammar?] can result in maladaptive interactions with others (effects[spelling?] both relationships and social interactions)
Show the importance that dopamine has on the initial stages of relationship forming, as well as how it alters as stimuli becomes familiar
How social interaction and relationships can affect dopamine, which consequently affects social interaction and relationships

Focus questions:

How does dopamine affect an individual after a social interaction?
What happens to social interaction and or relationships when the dopamine system isn't functioning correctly?
How does social interaction and relationships effect the dopamine system in a cyclical nature?
Apart from reward-seeking, what are the other roles of dopamine on social interaction and relationships?

What is dopamine?

Figure 1. This image shows the rough pathways dopamine can go through, as well as the important locations for the dopamine system.

Dopamine is a chemical neurotransmitter which can be found in several locations within the brain. Connecting each specialized location are dopamine pathways (See Figure 1.). The chemical release of dopamine within the brain is important for various mental processes such as reward-seeking behaviour, learning, and mood regulation, as well as aversive and alerting processes (Bromberg-Martin et al., 2010).

Types of receptors

Dopamine has a collection of 5 different receptors. These receptors are classed from D1 - D5 and each receptor has its own specific location in the brain, consequently affecting the brain processes differently, resulting in the broad nature of dopamine and its effects on the brain (See table 1. for the breakdown of each receptor) (Bhatia et al., 2023).

Table 1. Types of Receptors and their respective functions
Type	Function
D1	memory, attention, impulse control, regulation of renal function, locomotion
D2	locomotion, attention, sleep, memory, learning
D3	cognition, impulse control, attention, sleep
D4	cognition, memory, fear, impulse control, attention, sleep
D5	decision making, cognition, attention, renin secretion

Note. This table shows each of the 5 dopamine receptors, and their functions within the brain (Bhatia et al., 2023).

Talk about the tonic and phasic stages of dopamine. This is crucial for its response to aversive stimuli in social interactions, and phasic stages are important for motivation and learning (prior stages creating desire to engage in social interaction) (Collins & Sanders, 2019).

Theories driving dopamine

Talk about how there needs to be a balance in dopamine (Mono-amine hypothesis), as excessive/insufficient amounts of dopamine can lead to depression, anxiety etc..., (Boku et al., 2018) (Mention the contention in recent literature with this hypothesis, however, use it to show how incorrect modulation of dopamine can lead to adverse social interactions and relationships in later headings).

Reward-seeking actions (Most conventional theory for dopamine) ((Bromberg-Martin et al., 2010) & (Ronaldi, 2014) & (Collins & Sanders, 2019))

Non-reward events - there is no intrinsic rewards, and no cues to future rewards. This is considered to be tied to motivation ((Bromberg-Martin et al., 2010) & (Collins & Sanders, 2019 (section 4.2, personal note))
- Broken down into two subcategory (Aversive and alerting) - important in showing how it can disrupt social interactions and relationships.

Interaction between dopamine and social interaction (Probably going to change naming)

Direct effects

Dopamine (DA) is crucial in the events that precede the event, it is crucial to distinct that while DA is a motivator, it always follows the event, and is rather important for maintaining the conditioned stimulus. Absence of the DA burst, we see rapid extinction of previous habits (Halbout et al., 2019).
- While the research above shows that it always follows an event, Dai et al. (2022) show that the nucleus accumbens (NA) shows a significant increase in DA, when the individual is in social investigation and they encounter novel stimuli as opposed to a stimuli that they are already familiar with.
- The ventral tegmental area (VTA) has also been shown to increase in activity during unfamiliar interactions. Leading to the idea that DA plays a crucial role in the initial stages, despite the lack of reward cure (Solié et al., 2022). Bariselli et al., (2018) show similar findings, classifying the VTA as crucial for non-familiar con-specific stimuli, and attribute this to this process leaving a plasticity trace, for it to be later strengthened and turned into a familiar stimuli that receives less activation.
Behavioural effects, ie. how coming off a major dopamine burst, can help increase social interactions.
Aversive and avoidant behaviours.

Dysfunctional adaptations

Brief overview on how dopamine can result in maladaptive behaviours, which consequently effect social interactions.

Psychological disorders

Discuss how disorders like depression and anxiety can affect they way someone interacts socially (Mono-amine hypothesis)

Addiction

Dopamine can regulate emotions, and alter personality expression, for example it could increase aggression
Maladaptive reward systems can result in addiction (Chiara & Bassareo, 2007)

Interaction between dopamine and relationships (Probably going to change naming)

[Provide more detail]

Novel stimuli

D2 and D3 dopamine receptors responsible for the mating stage of dating (Takahashi et al., 2015)
D1 receptor is important for the acquisition phase (Love, 2013)
D2 receptor important for familiar stimuli. Reduction in the nucleus accumbens results in a reduction of this receptor

Familiar stimuli

Show how the dopamine bursts, alter as a stimuli becomes familiar. Note that it doesn't disappear, as you want to keep the relationship. Use honeymoon phase of relationships as an example (find research)
What brain regions are important, when the individual becomes a consistent relationship, and why this can either cause the individual to maintain and or dissolve the relationship.
How relationships, can cause a dopamine surge, and prevent you from taking note on red flags.

The inter-relations between each other (Probably going to change naming)

Talk about how negative social interactions can lead to social isolation, which results in the dopamine pathways being weakened (find research)
How issues like break ups in relationships can cause a dopamine crash (find research)
How social interactions and relationships can cause issues with depression, anxiety etc... (Mono amine hypothesis) (find research)

Conclusion

Summarise the relationship between dopamine and social interactions, as well as relationships
Provide a portion that goes over the maladaptive processes that dopamine can cause, and consequently affect social interactions and relationships
Note that different dopamine receptors are responsible for different processes, as well as the recommendation that there is still much more research that needs to be done on the aversive and alerting responses of dopamine (Non-reward events)
Provide a concluding statement on the interaction that they have on each other, and that its not necessarily uni-directional in terms of effect.

References (Make sure its in alphabetical order)

Berke, J. (2018). What does dopamine mean? Nature neuroscience, 21(6), 787–793. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-018-0152-y.

Bhatia, A., Lenchner, J. R., & Saadabadi, A. (2019). Biochemistry, dopamine receptors. In: StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538242/.

Boku, S., Nakagawa, S., Toda, H., & Hishimoto, A. (2018). Neural basis of major depressive disorder: Beyond monoamine hypothesis. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 72, 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/pcn.12604

Bromberg-Martin, E. S., Matsumoto, M., & Hikosaka, O. (2010). Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron, 68(5), 815–834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.022

Chiara, D. C., & Bassareo, V. (2007). Reward system and addiction: what dopamine does and doesn’t do. Current Opinion in Pharmacology 7(1), 69–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coph.2006.11.003.

Collins, A. L., & Saunders, B. T. (2020). Heterogeneity in striatal dopamine circuits: Form and function in dynamic reward seeking. Journal of Neuroscience Research, 98(6), 1046–1069. https://doi.org/10.1002/jnr.24587

Dai, B., Sun, F., Tong, X., Ding, Y., Kuang, A., Osakada, T., Li, Y. (2022). Responses and functions of dopamine in nucleus accumbens core during social behaviors. Cell Reports, 40(8) 111246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111246

Love, T. M. (2013). Oxytocin, Motivation and the Role of Dopamine. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 119, 49–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbb.2013.06.011.

Ranaldi, R. (2014). Dopamine and reward seeking: the role of ventral tegmental area.Reviews in the Neurosciences, 25(5), 62–630. https://doi.org/10.1515/revneuro-2014-0019

Solié, C., Girard, B., Righetti, B., Tapparel, M., & Bellone, C. (2022).VTA dopamine neuron activity encodes social interaction and promotes reinforcement learning through social prediction error. Nature Neuroscience, 25(1), 86–97. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00972-9.

Takahashi, K., Mizuno, K., Sasaki, A. T., Wada, Y., Tanaka, M., Ishii, A., Tajima, K., Tsuyuguchi, N., Watanabe, K., Zeki, S., & Watanabe, Y. (2015). Imaging the passionate stage of romantic love by dopamine dynamics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9, 191. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00191.

External links

Study reveals role of dopamine and serotonin in social behavior, decision-making (Atrium Health, 2024)
Love’s chemistry: how dopamine shapes bonds and breakups (Neuroscience news, 2024)
Dopamine: brain chemical helps us understand other people – raising hopes for new treatments (The Conversation, 2024)