Dopamine Cells Influence Our Perception of Time | Hacker News Reader

Dopamine Cells Influence Our Perception of Time

simonsfoundation.org

116 pointsJabavuAdams31 comments

There is another article trending right now about increased Dopamine in the shower causing your executive functions to diminish and allows for increased creativity.

Seems like you could extrapolate that dopamine has a direct inverse correlation to executive functions in the brain. I'd go so far as to use New York and Silicon Valley as good examples of increased executive function and increased creativity, respectively.

I'd also relate this to the certain side-effects of Adderall, increased Dopamine causing a loss of time awareness and higher creativity, but the increase in your sympathetic nervous system causes the increased focus and awareness. Almost a best of both worlds, besides the likely strain on the body from overworking both systems.

Do you have any data to move your statement from subjunctive into the realm of evidence based science?

I know it sounds like it is nothing beyond his personal experience where n=1 but I for one can do n++ for him and know tons of people that would point to a similar experience with dopaminergic stimulants.

Entirely subjective. I have people that would testify to a similar experience but no objective proof.

I am basing this off of my experience being prescribed 20mg extended release Adderall

"Silicon Valley is creative and you should take Adderall."

>causing a loss of time awareness and higher creativity

whatever you're doing when you take adderall, you'll be doing for the next 12 hours before you realize how much time has past.

>whatever you're doing when you take adderall, you'll be doing for the next 12 hours before you realize how much time has past.

As someone who has only experienced this once (the very first time I tried it), I honestly think that this effect only happens when you overdose.

I wish there was a legal way to try Adderall. It's not even legal in Australia by prescription, and since I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, there's basically no chance I'll ever even get try the similar dextroamphetamine.

I'd love to see what effect it had on my focus and productivity. I've had a few amazing days before, but they're few and far between. Being able to switch that on with a careful controlled dose would be fascinating and useful.

Mark my words, the economic value of ADHD diagnoses (in the recapture of the economically disenfranchised/burnt out, the money to be earned by the patent-holders et al, and pressure from parents/etc) will change that sooner than you might think, if not necessarily strictly in the form of adderall (for instance, bupropion is another phenethylamine [and antidepressant] that is legal in Australia)

Adderall is basically mixed dextroamphetamine salts, there isn't a big difference between generic dextroamphetmine salts and Adderall despite what the drug manufacturer likes to say.

the new hotness is lisdexamfetamine, which is just dextroamphetamine bound to lysine, making it a prodrug as your liver needs to cleave the lysine off first. reduces abuse potential.

I wouldn't lose hope, though. You might as well lose hope if you mean free and clear legal access to dextroamphetamine.

but, there are illegal options if you want to get an idea of what it's like.

I'm not recommending you go buy street amphetamine, I'm not even sure what street amphetamine is like in Australia.

you might have access to methamphetamine instead of amphetamine sulfate which can come as paste or powder as opposed to crystalline chunks/powder like methamphetamine tends to be, it's a regional difference.

The point is you could, theoretically and hypothetically speaking, acquire street amphetamine + a 20 dollar milligram scale.

weigh out and try a low dose (~20mg, orally) after breakfast first thing in the morning to experience the similar effects to those that dextroamphetamine would give you.

Would it be legal? No. Theoretically though, people use the internet itself to acquire these things, cutting out a lot of the risk that comes with buying drugs the more traditional way.

That's just a theory of mine, though. Hypothetically speaking. Allegedly bitcoin and secondary wallets are involved.

"you could extrapolate that dopamine has a direct inverse correlation to executive functions in the brain."

Dopamine is a key to understanding motivation. Found in neurons in the brainstem (cells in basal ganglia), dopamine is released for unexpected reward and is a part of the unconscious brain. There is a predictive component in this reward, hence its link to motivation.

Learning about something, then being rewarded is taping into the dopamine system.

There are two negative side effects of changes in natural dopamine levels. Chasing a dopamine reward is addictive (craving and dependence). Certain drugs can hijack this reward system, making you think something good has happened. Lack or low levels of dopamine results in low motivation (anhedonia), in severe cases resting tremors, slowness and rigidity. We know this as Parkinsons disease.

"There is another article trending right now about increased Dopamine in the shower"

You can find the article here ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13504103

My subjective experience with adderall is that it makes you good at lower order, mechanical creativity and bad at higher order, "inspired" creativity. So, for example, you can write a lot, but much of it turns out to be less profound on rereading than you initially thought.

I've gotten mixed results. From 100% dextroamphetamine (Adderall is about 75% dextro and 25% levo, though also uses salts), I actually notice a distinct (but fleeting) increase in both kinds of creativity.

Writing, programming, and art all seem to be improved across all levels when taking it with a low tolerance.

Adderall definitely seems to hamper my creativity or have no effect, and makes me feel a bit more robotic.

It makes me great at local optimization and not much better at global optimization

To improve the "inspired" creativity it is good to microdose with some acid and you'll be coding all night like a genius.

I'm confused. Is this saying that you would expect to experience "time flies" with high or low dopamine?

Otherwise, holy shit. Confirmation bias is likely in play, but this sounds an awful lot like my experience of daily life. Slow time, difficultly with delayed gratification, strong desire to repeat situations/actions that resulted in successes.

"When dopamine activity was high, the animal was more likely to judge an interval as short, and vice versa."

Also explains why we are miserable. When we are having a good time, time flies. When we are not time slows down. It's as if our brain is wired to fast-forward the good parts and play the bad parts in slow motion so I guess we have time to deal with them. It wired to perform, not wired to enjoy.

I dunno. Neurotransmitters are complicated, and interact in complicated ways. I typically have "slow time", and it doesn't speed up when I'm having a good time. I don't know if that's low dopamine, or what, but now I'm curious to get a... neurotransmitter panel? Analysis? You get the idea.

Put a different way, it would seem the brain might make the good times something you want to repeat and make you avoid bad times.

All I know is that sometimes when I play Geometry Dash, it's too fast for me, and other times it feels kind of slow.

Umm .. there's no such thing as dopamine cells. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and neurons which activate on dopamine are called dopamine receptors. You can argue that neurons are a type of cell, but thats how far you can stretch it.

Time flies when you're having fun.

...or taking methamphetamines?

Isn't that the reverse?

I believe the full quote is, "Time flies like the wind, and fruit flies like bananas."

There was an article earlier this week on HN about the effects of stimulants on Chess Ability that was oddly consistent with this: https://worldchess.com/2017/01/25/special-report-new-study-f...

In particular, players would tend to lose on time more often when taking stimulants. When framed from the perspective of this article, that effect becomes "obvious".

There's also the thought that depression causes people to experience time dilation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Depression

Did they take this cell image from Project Discovery in Eve Online? Or are these actual cell photographs, since Project Discovery is based on identifying actual cells & uploading it to scientists.

LSD heavily interacts with many neurotransmitters, including dopamine (particularly the D2 receptor). Is it possible its unusual time distortion is related?

So this (finally?) explains the reason why (most) drugs affect perception of time

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