Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

This month we're talking all about disorders of the mind.

Things like depression, attention deficit disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

During the course of this month we are going to discuss the psychological and biological underpinnings of mood disorders of all kinds.

You'll learn a lot of science, you'll also learn a lot about the various treatments that exist and that are in development for these various mood disorders.

We will talk about behavioral tools, things like exercise, meditation, breath work, but also prescription drugs, supplements, and novel compounds that are now being tested in various clinical trials.

Across the month I think you'll start to realize that there are common pathways underlying many mood disorders.

In fact, mood disorders that look quite different from one another often depend on the action of the same neurochemicals or neural circuits in the brain and body.

That actually should be a point of great relief because what it means is that by understanding the biology of one mood disorder or understanding how one treatment or behavioral intervention can impact a mood disorder,

we gain insight into other mood disorders as well.

As always, we will discuss science and science-related tools that people could implement should they choose.

Before we dive into today's topic, I'd like to discuss a very particular set of scientific findings that relate to today's topic and that are important for understanding all mood disorders and all states of motivation, happiness, and sadness, as well as depression.

Basically, I'm going to paraphrase a brief segment of my discussion with Dr. Anna Lemke, who I sat down with to discuss addiction and the biological basis of addiction and addiction treatment.

A very important aspect of that discussion was when Dr. Lemke described the pleasure pain balance, literally the circuits in our brains that control our sense of pleasure and pain, and ultimately, whether or not we remain happy in our pursuit of pleasure or not.

This is an absolutely crucial aspect to the way that we function in everyday life and especially under conditions of mood disorders.

The pathway that she was describing is the so-called pleasure system. However, what most people don't realize is that the pleasure system is also directly associated with, and in fact, is the very same system that modulates mental or psychological anguish and pain.

Essentially, what she described is that whenever we pursue something that we think will bring us pleasure, and that could be anything that we think will bring us pleasure from food to video games to sex to a particular job or goal, short term or long term, that we experience release of the neuromodulator dopamine.

Now, dopamine is associated with increased levels of motivation and drive. It is not the molecule reward. It is the molecule of craving, motivation and drive.

However, as Dr. Lemke pointed out, when we are in pursuit of something, there is a release of dopamine in our brain. That makes us feel motivated, and in general, it makes us feel good.

But very shortly thereafter, and beneath our conscious awareness, there is a tilt of the pleasure pain balance in the brain, literally a shift in the neural circuits that underlie pleasure and pain, such that every bit of pleasure or pleasure seeking that causes release of dopamine will be balanced out by a little bit of pain.

And we don't experience this as physical pain, at least not at first. We experience it as craving for more of the thing that brought us pleasure.

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