People have long described dopamine as the pleasure chemical or the happiness molecule.

But think about how you feel when your dopamine is surging.

When you spend an hour on Instagram or demolish a sleeve

of Oreos, do you feel satisfied and happy? What about your kids? After three hours of Netflix,

half a bag of Doritos, or an all-day Roblox binge, how do they seem? There are probably exceptions,

but for the most part, dopamine peaking activities like doom scrolling

and mindless snacking leave us feeling kind of lonely, wanting, even sad. From KERA in Dallas,

this is Think. I'm Courtney Collins in for Chris Boyd. Scientists have learned more about dopamine

and how it can push us toward activities we don't even enjoy.

Michaeline Ducleff's new book explores that treacherous tangle of brain wiring and helps chart a course out.

It's called Dopamine Kids, a science-based plan to rewire your child's brain and take back your family in the age of screens and ultra-processed

foods. And she joins us now to talk about it. Michaeline, welcome back to think. Oh, thank you for having

me. So before we dive into the book, we need to kind of understand what dopamine actually is and

kind of how we got it wrong for such a long time.

Yeah. So like you said in that beautiful intro, that dopamine is not pleasure. It is not

the molecule of happiness. That idea was actually based on studies from the 1950s that were

really misinterpreted. And scientists and our culture kind of grabbed onto it and couldn't let go of that idea.

But the last like 30 years or so slowly, they've been able to really figure out what dopamine is.

And it's really a fascinating, fascinating story. So what scientists have found is that dopamine doesn't give us the

feeling of joy. It is, like you said, a feeling of desire, of wanting. It motivates us to go out

and get things that could potentially give us joy. So it's kind of the do it again button in our

brain. Do it again. Do it again. Go again go go it's but not the like ah this is

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