Euphoria, or euphoric mood, is an exaggerated physical and mental well-being, often out of proportion to actual stimuli or events.
The feeling of incredible happiness and lightness can happen for various reasons. A person can be in a euphoric mood after achieving something they passionately desired or an unexpected reward; be on cloud nine during the first period of falling in love; melt with pleasure during orgasm.
A euphoric mood can appear even from a long run. This condition is also called “runner’s high”. And the most pronounced euphoria from taking illegal psychoactive substances.
In addition, euphoria can from taking certain medications, such as barbiturates, benzodiazepines, glucocorticosteroids, and also from certain diseases.
Euphoria in some mental disorders, neurological diseases, terminal conditions. The mood remains morbidly elevated, behavior is characterized by good nature, serene bliss, lack of self-criticism.
Sofia Yatsenko says that euphoria most often with the following pathologies:
- Manic state. Most often within the framework of bipolar affective disorder.
- Epilepsy: Euphoria occur during the aura preceding a seizure.
- Schizophrenia. Euphoric experiences are characteristic of various forms of schizophrenia in the initial stages, when the perception of the outside world, one’s own sensory sensations, and thoughts change.
- Mental retardation. Manifested by undeveloped cognitive activity, decreased intelligence and disturbances of emotional-volitional functions. Joy, unrestrained laughter for no reason , increased excitability are often observed.
- Pick’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by destruction and atrophy of the cerebral cortex, primarily in the frontal and temporal lobes. It is accompanied by symptoms of dementia with behavioral disturbances, often including euphoria, disinhibition, and expansiveness.
- Brain tumor. When the tumor is localized in the frontal lobes, early clinical signs are headache, convulsions, mental disorders, among which unmotivated actions, inadequate humor, and euphoria predominate.
- Terminal conditions. In severe diseases, inhibition develops in the higher parts of the central nervous system in the pre-agony stage. It manifests itself as impaired consciousness, agitation, convulsions, and euphoria.
- Hemorrhage in the brain localized in the frontal lobes.
- Multiple is caused by autoimmune damage to brain tissue.
Also, a euphoric mood occur from exposure to radiation . In the second phase of radiation sickness, an “X-ray hangover” can occur, in which a person alternates between a bad and good mood and lacks criticism of his condition.
Euphoric mood sometimes in people in zero gravity. The psyche does not tolerate such unfamiliar conditions well, and a person may experience both a feeling of helplessness, falling and horror, and euphoria.
Taking drugs, running a marathon, and having a brain tumor may seem like they have nothing in common, but they can all produce similar euphoric states, albeit of varying intensity. The answer is that all of these events activate the same system in the brain.
Is it true that dopamine causes euphoria?
Our brains a reward system that we use to learn. Behaviors that are beneficial to survival, such as eating high-calorie food , having sex, or increasing social status, trigger the release of certain chemicals in the brain structures. As a result, the experience is perceived as pleasant, and we strive to repeat it.
The reward system begins in the ventral tegmental area. From there, dopamine neurons send signals to other brain structures such as the nucleus accumbens, striatum, hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex.
During euphoria, the nucleus accumbens greatly the amount of dopamine, a substance that transmits signals between nerve cells. Previously, it was believed that this neurotransmitter was responsible for the state of euphoria. People even began to call it the pleasure hormone.
However, some experiments have made scientists that dopamine is involved in the feeling of euphoria itself. The fact is that the reward system creates not only pleasure as such, but also the desire for it. That same thirst and passionate desire to get what is, in theory, very pleasant. Apparently, dopamine is responsible for this component of pleasure.
Animal experiments that even if dopamine is completely removed from the nucleus accumbens and striatum, subjects continue to experience pleasure from sweet tastes. involving humans have found that administering drugs that suppress dopamine did not reduce the pleasure of cigarettes and amphetamines. At the same time, injecting dopamine into the nucleus accumbens food more enjoyable.
Scientists that the pleasure hormone is actually responsible for motivation and influences how a person evaluates the significance of a reward. The more of this substance, the more desirable the object seems.
Interestingly, the sensitivity of the dopamine “wanting” system can change, and not always in parallel with the pleasure system. In other words, a person can passionately desire something, but not get a real thrill from it.
This may be what during chemical dependency. Taking drugs increases the sensitivity of the dopamine system, and the person begins to compulsively seek a dose, although the drug no longer brings him pleasure.
What causes euphoria
When a person experiences pleasure, in addition to dopamine, other substances in the brain’s reward system – endogenous opioids, or, in other words, opioid peptides. These include endorphins and enkephalins.
many areas in the brain that release these substances, and scientists that their effect on certain structures feelings of pleasure and euphoria.
Euphoria is thought when all the areas of the brain responsible for experiencing pleasure are simultaneously activated. These are called pleasure centers, or hedonic hot spots.
To date, five such areas have been identified, located in different parts of the brain: in the ventral tegmental area, the shell of the nucleus accumbens, the parabrachial nucleus, the insular cortex, and the orbitofrontal cortex.
Activation of one pleasure center to stimulation of others. Suppression of one pleasure center dulls the activation of the others. Thus, simultaneous activation of all pleasure centers in the reward system is necessary to create a feeling of euphoria.
Interestingly, not all areas are necessary for experiencing pleasure. For example, people with severe brain injuries or children with congenital defects of the cerebral cortex still enjoy music, games, and communication. But whether they can experience euphoria is an open question.
Scientists that small opioid “hot spots” in the nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum are most important for pleasant sensations. When endogenous mu opioids act on these areas, a person feels pleasure.
These same hot spots can also be affected by other substances.
Activation of pleasure centers occurs when the concentration of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endogenous opioid peptides – enkephalins and endorphins, norepinephrine and endocannabinoid neurotransmitters and 2-arachidonoylglycerol increases in the synaptic cleft.
It is the latter that we should thank for the pleasure of running. One small showed that the “runner’s high” occurs even after opioid receptors are blocked. Scientists concluded that the pleasant state and reduced anxiety after running occurs thanks to endocannabinoids such as anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol
