Dr. Kent Berridge

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525 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 4 Aug

Dr. Kent Berridge’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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We're Out of Time · Wanting vs Liking: Why Addiction Isn't About Pleasure | Dr. Kent Berridge · 4 Aug 2026 podcast

I think that's right.

I mean, our work, incentive sensitization, no one starts as a sensitized individual when they start taking drugs.

I mean, just as you say, they take it for the pleasure of the drugs, for the social milieu to fit in for all the various reasons a person might.

But it's not a sensitized want at that point.

And many people, most people who start taking drugs are not going to develop sensitized wants.

There's a lot of individual differences in vulnerability to sensitization of this dopamine system.

And many people are fairly resistant at street doses, so they don't become very sensitized.

But some individuals are susceptible, some very, very susceptible.

And if they're taking drugs, especially if they're taking them in sort of a binge-like fashion, you know, like on weekends, not on the weekdays, but then on the weekends, again, sort of spaced apart binges, that's the ideal sort of recipe for developing sensitization of the brain mesolimbic dopamine system if they're vulnerable to do it.

And if they're taking drugs and doing that to sensitize, then their wants are going to be focused on the drug taking.

Well, the individual difference is there's a number of sources.

I mean, genes have a lot to do with it.

In fact, genes are probably the biggest single contributor.

This is true for people.

Well, environment has a lot to do with whether one's taking drugs, absolutely, and how one takes it.

But the vulnerability to sensitization is mostly genetics, coupled with a few other factors like certain pre-exposures to certain kinds of environmental things like major stresses in life that can also predispose towards sensitization and produce even cross-sensitization so that when they do take drugs, even the first time, they might have a sensitized response.

Oh, absolutely.

That's right.

Even with the genetic vulnerability, we're still not sensitized.

We're just vulnerable to becoming sensitized.

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