The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good [Hardcover]

David J. Linden (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 14, 2011 | ISBN-10: 0670022586 | ISBN-13: 978-0670022588 | Edition: 1

A leading brain scientist's look at the neurobiology of pleasure-and how pleasures can become addictions.

Whether eating, taking drugs, engaging in sex, or doing good deeds, the pursuit of pleasure is a central drive of the human animal. In The Compass of Pleasure Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David J. Linden explains how pleasure affects us at the most fundamental level: in our brain.

As he did in his award-winning book, The Accidental Mind, Linden combines cutting-edge science with entertaining anecdotes to illuminate the source of the behaviors that can lead us to ecstasy but that can easily become compulsive. Why are drugs like nicotine and heroin addictive while LSD is not? Why has the search for safe appetite suppressants been such a disappointment? The Compass of Pleasure concludes with a provocative consideration of pleasure in the future, when it may be possible to activate our pleasure circuits at will and in entirely novel patterns.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

By merging an evolutionary perspective with cutting-edge research in neuroscience, Linden, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, addresses provocative questions about the relationship between pleasure and addiction while exploring many of the broader implications of the nexus of the two. "Understanding the biological basis of pleasure leads us to fundamentally rethink the moral and legal aspects of addiction to drugs, food, sex, and gambling and the industries that manipulate these pleasures." Linden (The Accidental Mind) is admirable at explaining complex scientific concepts for the nonspecialist. He focuses most of his attention on the role played by the small portion of our gray matter known as the medial forebrain pleasure circuit and demonstrates how both behavior and chemistry can activate its neurons. He also discusses the somewhat counterintuitive conclusion that addiction is often associated with decreased pleasure. Linden's conversational style, his abundant use of anecdotes, and his successful coupling of wit with insight makes the book a joy to read. Even the footnotes are sprinkled with hidden gems. (Apr.)
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About the Author

David J. Linden is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The author of The Accidental Mind—winner of a Silver Medal at the Independent Publisher's Book Awards—he serves as the editor in chief of the Journal of Neurophysiology. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1 edition (April 14, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670022586
• ISBN-13: 978-0670022588
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #222,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Neuroscientist David Linden wishing you pleasure in moderation! June 24, 2011

By Didaskalex TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

*****
"There are variants in genes that turn down the function of dopamine signaling within the pleasure circuit. For people who carry these gene variants, their muted dopamine systems lead to blunted pleasure circuits, which in turn affects their pleasure-seeking activities. ... Any one of us could be an addict at any time. Addiction is not fundamentally a moral failing -- it's not a disease of weak-willed losers." -- David Linden

Many of us humans are aware of our personal and ambiguous relationship to pleasure, which we spend a great amount of time and re­sources pursuing. As we deal with other influencing forces, however, we also tend to regulate pleasure. A key motivator of our lives, pleasure is central to learning, since we find food, water, and sex motivating to survive and pass our genetic DNA onto future generations. Certain varieties of pleasure sensations are regarded as specially guarded areas. Many of our most important rituals involving prayer, music, dance, and meditation create types of transcendent pleasure that has become deeply intrenched in human social and cultural practice. The skillful neuroscientist and articulate author sums it up, "While most people are able to achieve a certain degree of pleasure with only moderate indulgence, those with blunted dopamine systems are driven to overdo it. In order to get to that same set point of pleasure that others would get to easily -- maybe with two drinks at the bar and a laugh with friends -- you need six drinks at the bar to get the same thing."

Our religions, our educational and legal systems, are all deeply concerned with controlling pleasure, a mind over body notion.... But this intrinsic pleasure that can also be initiated or increased by artificial activators like cocaine, heroin, or modest doses of nicotine or alcohol, are located in our brains, transmitting a pleasure buzz from a wide variety of ex­periences. One can turn to theories of human pleasure and its regulation with support from social history or cultural anthropology, but human pleasure is mostly influenced by tradition and culture. However, The Compass of Pleasure explores a different type of more profound theory based on a cross-cultural biological expla­nation. The clear and orderly thinking author concludes, "Pleasure must be earned, must be achieved naturally, and it should be sought in moderation. Self denial of pleasure can yield spiritual growth, even while pleasure is transitory."

In this book the author, Dr. David Linden, professor of neuroscience, who likes to tell his students, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, that the golden age of brain research is right now, argues that most of our lives experiences are transcendent. This applies equally to illicit vices as well as social practices. Various diverse activities as exercise, or socially sanc­tioned rituals as meditative prayer, or even charitable donations, all fall into this category. Such daily activities trigger an anatomically defined and biochemically determined pleasure circuits in the brain. Shopping, learning, highly caloric foods, gambling, prayer, and browsing on the Internet; all evoke neuro signals that trigger the medial forebrain pleasure circuit, a small group of inter-connected brain areas. These activated tiny clumps of neurons then transmit vague to intense human pleasure signals just experienced.

Linden's theory of pleasure reframes our understanding of the part of the human body that societies are most intent upon regulating. So, "While we might assume that the anatomical region most closely governed by laws, religious prohibitions, and social mores is the genitalia, or the mouth, or the vocal cords, it is actually the medial forebrain pleasure circuit." As societies and as individuals, we are hell-bent on achieving and controlling pleasure, and it is those neu­rons, deep in our brains, that are the battle ground of that struggle. The dark side of pleasure is, of course, addiction. It is now becom­ing clear that addiction is associated with long-lasting changes in the biochemical, electrical, and morphological functions of connections within the meddle fore brain plea­sure circuit. There is strong support that these changes underlie many of the dark sides of addiction, including progressive tolerance, craving, withdrawal, and relapse. In this sense, pleasure, addic­tion and memory, are closely related and directly interconnected.

David Linden, in the tradition of great science popularizers of George Gamow and Roger Penrose, like a skillful troubadour who entertains your mind into wonder, iterates, "It would be possible to write a book exploring the brain's pleasure circuits that were free of not only molecules but also basic anatomy,... If you come along for the ride and work with me just a bit to learn some basic neuroscience, I'll do my best to make it lively and fun as we explore the cellular and molecular basis of human pleasure, ..., and addiction." Read more ›

90 of 99 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Can't Johnny Stop Smoking, Drinking, Gambling & Whoring? May 16, 2011

By Jan Steckel

Format:Hardcover

David Linden has done it again. If you liked his first book, The Accidental Mind, about evolution and the brain, you'll love The Compass of Pleasure. The latter is a neurological tour of reward pathways in the brain, explaining some aspects of obesity, sex, runner's highs, drug addiction, and gambling, among other things. The author has the knack for explaining complicated things while being witty instead of condescending. It's an easy read for such complex material -- you can finish it in a couple of nights, but don't try reading it when you're sleepy! It may be well-explained, but it doesn't feel dumbed down and it's still challenging. If you want to understand your alcoholic aunt, your slutty sister, your fat father, your exercise-bulemic brother, your ungenerous uncle or your gambling grandpa, here's what their wiring is doing. Well conceived, well written, and well past time you got your copy.

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars More than a little disappointing July 28, 2011

By Tintin

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Compass of Pleasure, by David Linden

From an evolutionarily psychological perspective, it's easy to see the raw importance of pleasure driving human behavior. There's a lot in this book to flesh out and support that idea. Relying largely on recent studies which use a crude but non-intrusive scanning device, or on animal studies with probes, Linden explains how the brain handles pleasure. Here's a small example: "... A different group of neurons within the arculate nucleus, those that use the neurotransmitter called NPY, are unaffected by the vagus nerve-nucleus tractus solatarius pathway, but are inhibited by circulating leptin. Like the POMC-containing neurons, these NPY cells also send axons to both the paraventricular nucleus and the lateral hypothalamus. But their actions are opposite to those of the POMC neurons: The NPY cells inhibit the paraventricular nucleus and excite the lateral hypothalamus..."

Usually the gist is summarized at the end, thank goodness, and even if you don't become a molecular biologist, you come away with a lot. The brain, we learn is a Rube Goldberg contraption involving triggers, signals, thresholds, circuits, feedback loops, receptors, transmitters, reuptake valves, modulators and back up systems.

Linden is as interested in addiction as he is in pleasure. He makes an argument that gambling, drugs, sex, and food can take on the biological characteristics of addiction: development of tolerance, leading to decreased pleasure and increased craving. "Pleasure," he says, changes to "wanting." This is particularly well covered in regards to drugs and food.

Here's a tidbit: dopamine-goosing pleasure drugs (heroin, cocaine) are highly addictive, especially when injected or smoked because the hit is big and fast.... Hallucinagens (LSD, mescaline) are not so "pleasurable" and so are less addictive, as are THC and other less potent pleasure-drugs. But what's the most addictive? Cigarettes! Fully 80% who try them get hooked, he said - because of the frequent per-puff hits, each of which is followed by a small high. His says it's like dog training - what's better: many commands followed by small treats, or occasional demands rewarded with a steak.

There is a chapter on sex, one on gambling, one on positive addictions such as meditation, learning, and exercise. I found much of this to be interesting.

The book has some serious shortcomings ,though. The graphics were very bad; some labels were miniscule, many diagrams were unintelligible, and all were accompanied by half-page captions which repeated what was said elsewhere.

More important, while the author relied heavily on summaries of others' studies, they not well synthesized. Some were quite hard to understand. For example, p 144-146 did the subjects know which side of the screen was "gain?" And, p 165, of what use were cues in a foreign language? The interpretation of $0 on p 139 makes no sense. Why the game, p 166-167? And so on.

Moreover, some of the studies cited should probably have been left out. After describing one in some detail (p160-61) Linden says "... this study ... adds nothing to our understanding of the issue."

Some of his commentary is difficult to understand. After explaining how intense pleasure can be stimulated with an electrode, he calls that sort of pleasure "lifeless, lacking color and depth." Why? He debates whether, if addiction is a disease, addicts should be held responsible. No, he says, they are like blameless victims of heart disease - however they *are responsible for their own recovery. He makes much of the distinction between money, an "arbitrary stimulus" or "abstract idea," and food or sex, which are concrete stimuli. Why, I wonder, considering he later says "the ability of experience to produce long-term changes in the pleasure circuit has enabled arbitrary rewards and abstract ideas to be felt as pleasurable ..." In the last chapter he demolishes someone's expectation that brain-implants will basically meld humans and machines; but then follows with his own equally magical baseball cap which will manufacture sensations with the twist of a dial.

It was a great idea and a good start, but ends up not going much of anywhere. Read more ›

52 of 58 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting neurophysiology May 29, 2011

By M. Hyman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Neurophysiology is a fascinating topic. We know very little about how the brain really does work, the field is evolving rapidly, and reveals huge amounts of interesting data about how we think. This book is particularly focused on learned responses revolving around pleasure circuits: addiction responses to drugs, eating, gambling, and many other things, as well as how these responses relate to our ability to learn. It reviews many interesting experiments about brain functioning, starting with some fairly disturbing experiments in the 50s (and before) and up through quite modern techniques involving genetic engineering and light pulses. The book will give you a sense of the evolution of neurophysiology and much that we know, as well as a sense of how little we do know.

I found the book quite interesting, especially as it ties together the chemical processes and brain functioning around everything ranging from sexual response to obesity, as well as how scientists think about and experiment on the issues.

Some of the chemical parts might be a bit complex for the novice, but it isn't hard to get the key concepts regardless of one's understanding of the actual chemistry.

Quite fun, and an interesting science book.