Dr. Anna Lembke

So the same parts of the brain that process pleasure also process pain, and they work through what's called an opponent process mechanism.

Okay.

Okay, so imagine that deep in your reward pathway, there is a scale or a balance, something like a teeter-totter in a kid's- Oh, like a seesaw.

Like a seesaw.

Yeah, okay.

And when it's at rest, that balance or that beam on the central fulcrum is level with the ground.

Okay.

When we experience pleasure, it tips one way and pain, it tips the other.

Now, again, this is a vast oversimplification because of course,

We can experience pleasure and pain simultaneously, for example, when we eat spicy food.

And the brain is just much, much more complex than this pleasure-pain balance.

But it's a useful framework for conceptualizing some fundamental concepts in neuroscience, like the concept of homeostasis and the concept of neuroadaptation, which I'm going to explain now.

Okay.

Okay.

So let's say, you know, I do something pleasurable.

We talked about potato chips.

I also really like potato chips.

You know, I eat a potato chip that gives me pleasure.

My pleasure-pain balance tilts to the side of pleasure.

But there are certain rules governing this balance, and the first and most important rule is...