NATURAL HIGH OUR OWN ENDORPHINS
Are the joys of nature
(music, sex, meditation, whatever) as great as drugs? There may be a crumb of truth in this. The brain does produce
its own opiates—the enkephalins and endorphins. If we inject these into
animals, they cause the same effects
as morphine or heroin. The big question is, are they released in circumstances in which we feel great? Can we learn to release them ourselves? 'Ihe latter question is a
premise of the science fiction book Earth, by David Brin, which depicts a future world where drug abuse no longer exists: the new social outcasts are
the brain addicts who have learned to release their own opioids.
Naturally released endorphins do affect behavior.
One enterprising scientist showed
that the release of endorphins went up in animals undergoing experimental
acupuncture, lending credence to this ancient Chinese healing technique. How
can we tell if we are releasing endorphins? First, we could give a drug like naloxone (Narcan) and see if the endorphin high stopped. This approach has actually been tested on people listening
to their favorite music, who found that they didn't enjoy the music
as much if they were treated with an
opiate antagonist (and pleasure is in the ear of the beholder—it has to be music the listener likes, whether it is Beethoven or Florence and the Machine). However,
playing the music instead of
listening to it may be even more effective. A recent study that used increased pain threshold as a surrogate for
endorphin activity in the brain showed
that playing music or drumming elevated the pain threshold of the musician. How about runner's high? Do endorphins kick in at
the end of a marathon? A recent
experiment suggests that may happen. Scientists showed that endogenous opioids were released in the brains of people who
had just completed a two-hour endurance run.
