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.
So I think all the studies, both in human beings and preclinical animal models, yes, would suggest that the addictive liability of opioids and psychostimulants, which are cocaine and methamphetamine, have the common final action of causing massive release of dopamine in this target of the dopamine neurons, the nucleus accumbens.
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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.
So cocaine and methamphetamine, what the drugs known as psychostimulants, actually bind to a protein in the brain, or a molecule in the brain that is responsible for sucking up. It's a vacuum cleaner sucking up the dopamine after it's been released. And cocaine prevents that dopamine from being vacuumed up. So the cocaine hangs around longer. Meth not only prevents the dopamine from being vacuumed up, it actually causes the reverse. It actually causes the direct release of dopamine from what we call nerve terminals, from the site where dopamine is released.