Drive and Motivation

Dopamine Signalling

How strongly dopamine is signalling, mostly in the reward and motivation circuits. This is the route by which a compound that raises prolactin ends up flattening drive: dopamine holds prolactin down, so a sustained prolactin rise is read backwards as reduced dopaminergic tone.

Nucleus Accumbens

Where reward is registered and where the decision to repeat something is made. Anabolic steroids are reinforcing in animals at this site, which is the anatomical reason dependence is possible at all.

Withdrawal Syndrome

The cluster that arrives after stopping, while the natural axis is still shut down: flat mood, no drive, no libido, disturbed sleep, and in some cases suicidal thoughts. Separated from dependence because dependence is about the pull to continue and this is about what happens when you do not. It is the window in which almost all of the serious psychiatric events in the literature occur.