Day 4

Sunday March 20, 2011

Today I spent about 4 hours just formulating questions that might arise from my question, or simply questions that I'd like to answer at some point. I researched each question briefly in order to keep my ideas in order.

1. Are we innately attracted to certain traits? (Eg. I read this study on how men apparently are attracted to certain characteristics in women, such as big eyes, small nose and big mouth, dilated pupils, etc.) I could try to relate this question to the aspect of pleasure.
2. Do we get a feeling of reward from seeing beauty in others? This one might not be a valid question at all... What is a feeling of reward? Or what fires up in our brains when we see something "beautiful"? But then again, what is beauty? Maybe I don't want to go there.
3. Do we get a feeling of reward from looking/feeling beautiful? Same issue as the last question. I don't think beauty is an essential part of my question, but I'd like to research it at some point. Maybe by taking a course like love and lust.
4. In what ways is money rewarding? This is actually a big one for me, I can't forget. I've read studies that suggest that earning money triggers the same brain mechanisms that cocaine does. The same brain structures and functions are activated... Is money a drug, in terms of the effects of the brain? Addiction to (making) money?
5. Is money as effective as an excitatory drug in inducing pleasure?
6. How can we alter our state of mind to recreate the effect of drugs without actually taking drugs? I think that this question can be explored in terms of mind control from subjects as religion studies, maybe Buddhism and how their brains work...but it's not really vitally relevant to what I want to do.
7. In what ways is music rewarding? This is also a big one for me. I'd like to see what brain structures are active when we listen to music that we personally like as opposed to music that we don't like. Then again those structures might be the same ones as they are both auditory inputs that are processed by the same structures...
8. Is happiness a mental disease? *I love this one*. Initially I wanted to focus my question around mental diseases instead of addictions, but I don't think I want to go into the area of psychiatry/psychology anymore... Maybe if I relate happiness to addictions and pleasures. Are pleasures necessary for happiness? I'd have to define pleasure AND happiness first. I should do that soon.
9. What is an effective treatment for addictions? This is definitely a big part of my question and I'm expanding on this soon.
10. Which brain structures make up our reward system/pathways? I have some ideas on this: Nucleus accumbens, VTA, limbic system, etc. I need to research on this too.
11. Is there such a thing as a psychological addiction? For example, if a person starts smoking and their brain structures have not adapted to the intake of nicotine, can the person be psychologically addicted? Can the mind (psych) trick the body into thinking it is addicted?
12. Are addictions limited to a biological structure? And by this I mean, does your brain have to be modified by the recurring intake of drugs in order to become addicted? or... in what stage of a drug habit do you become addicted? Are there any drugs that you get addicted to after trying them ONCE? (Like the concept/rumor that you become addicted to cocaine after the first time you try it...)

I realize that all these questions are not worded very smartly but they will serve me as reminders of ideas that I want to explore later on.