The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
Dopamine when it's released in our brain tends to turn on areas of our brain that narrow our visual focus and our auditory focus, so it creates a cone of auditory attention, that's very narrow, creates a tunnel of visual attention that's very narrow. Whereas when we have less dopamine, we tend to view the entire world, we tend to see the whole scene that we are in, we tend to hear everything all at once.
Every Sunday: the week’s new conflicts and verdict changes — and nothing else.
Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
Dopamine is released from neurons, it's what we call a neuromodulator and as a neuromodulator it changes the activity of the circuits in the brain, such that certain circuits are more active than others and in particular, dopamine creates a heightened state of focus. It tends to contract our visual world and it tends to make us pay attention to things that are outside and beyond the confines of our skin. That's what we call exteroception. Dopamine also tends to put us in a state of motivation and wanting things outside the confines of our skin.