Dopamina

Es el transmisor catecolaminrgico ms importante del SistemaNervioso Central (SNC),

donde participa en una gran variedad de funciones que incluyen la actividad locomotora,
la afectividad, la regulacin neuroendcrina y la ingestin de agua y alimentos (1,2). En el
Sistema Nervioso Perifrico, la dopamina es un modulador de la funcin cardaca y renal,
del tono vascular y de la motilidad gastrointestinal.
Lugares de sus receptores
La dopamina se libera desde neuronas situadas en el rea tegmental ventral (ATV) hasta
estructuras como elncleo accumbens, la amgdala, el rea septal lateral, el ncleo
olfatorio anterior, el tubrculo olfatorio y el neocrtex mediante las proyecciones que
tiene el ATV sobre estas estructuras.
Cabe destacar que el ATV es el punto de origen donde se encuentran los cuerpos de las
clulas dopaminrgicas , y se encuentra ampliamente implicado en el sistema de
recompensa natural del cerebro, el mismo que acta en numerosas adicciones. Es
importante en la cognicin, motivacin, orgasmo,dependencia a las drogas, emociones
intensas relacionadas con el amor, y varios desrdenes psiquitricos. El ATV contiene
neuronas que se proyectan hacia numerosas reas del cerebro, desde la corteza
prefrontal (CPF) hasta el tallo cerebral pasando por numerosas regiones entre estas dos.

Esquizofrnicos poseen cantidades grandes de dopamina.

Enfermos de Alzheimer tienen cantidades nfimas de dopamina y son tratados con
dopaminrgicos. Las anfetaminas que son estimulantes de la dopamina generan este
trastorno.
La funcin motora de la dopamina se ha vinculado con procesos motivacionales como el
de reforzamiento y de recompensa. Las vas dopaminrgicas, son importantes en el
mecanismo cerebral de autoestimulacin.

Sin embargo, cocana y anfetamina influyen sobre distintos mecanismos. La cocana es un

bloqueador (del transportador de la dopamina) que inhibe competitivamente la
recaptacin de la dopamina para aumentar el periodo de vida de la misma y producir una
sobreabundancia de dopamina (un aumento de hasta el 150%) dentro de los parmetros
de los neurotransmisores de la dopamina.
Al igual que la cocana, las anfetaminas incrementan la concentracin de dopamina en el
espacio [sinptico], pero por medio de un mecanismo distinto. Lasanfetaminas tienen una
estructura similar a la dopamina y pueden por tanto penetrar en el botn terminal de
la neurona presinptica por medio de sus transportadores de dopamina, as como
difundindose a travs de la [membrana neural] directamente. Al entrar en la neurona
presinptica, las anfetaminasfuerzan a las molculas de dopamina a salir de su vescula de
almacenamiento y las expulsan al espacio sinptico haciendo funcionar a la inversa a los
transportadores de dopamina.
El papel de la dopamina en la experiencia del placer ha sido cuestionado por varios
investigadores. Se ha argumentado que la dopamina est ms asociada al deseo
anticipatorio y la motivacin (comnmente denominados "querer") por oposicin al placer
consumatorio real (normalmente denominado "gustar")
La dopamina se libera al encuentro de estmulos desagradables o aversivos, y as motiva
hacia el placer de evitar o eliminar los estmulos desagradables
La dopamina tambin puede tener un papel en la saliencia (perceptibilidad) de los
estmulos potencialmente importantes, tales como las fuentes de recompensa o de
peligro. Esta hiptesis sostiene que la dopamina ayuda a la toma de decisiones al influir en
la prioridad, o el nivel de deseo, de estos estmulos a la persona en cuestin.
Acta en la regulacin de la prolactina.
Experimento del sexo por Gert Holstege
Para descubrir qu pasa exactamente en el cerebro durante el orgasmo, el equipo de
investigacin dirigido por Gert Holstege no se ha andado con remilgos ticos. En el fro
bastidor del laboratorio, once mujeres tuvieron que llevar al clmax a sus respectivas
parejas mientras la cabeza de los hombres se hallaba embutida en un tomgrafo por
emisin de positrones (TEP). A fin de no falsificar los resultados, los hombres tenan que
permanecer adems lo ms tranquilos posible hasta que las mujeres iniciaran su tarea y
comenzasen las mediciones de la actividad cerebral. Cuando los hombres alcanzaron el
orgasmo su sistema de recompensa se encontraba extraordinariamente activo,
especialmente el rea tegmental ventral, en donde se produce la dopamina, la "hormona
de la felicidad", y el ncleo accumbens, lugar en el que la dopamina desarrolla su accin.
La intensidad de la vivencia placentera es comparable con el efecto de la cocana o de la
herona, pues en los estados de embriaguez y de dependencia el sistema de recompensa
cerebral desempea igualmente un papel fundamental.

Como la perpetuacin de la especie humana depende de la eyaculacin masculina, sta se

ve recompensada por la naturaleza. Tal es al menos la suposicin de los investigadores.
Por esta razn, explica Holstege, los heroinmanos no tienen ningn deseo de sexo, pues
mediante la embriaguez que les reporta la droga experimentan sensaciones casi
orgsmicas. Ulteriormente los investigadores tambin constataron una actividad
aumentada en las regiones cerebrales que participan en los recuerdos plsticos y en la
accin de ver. Ello se debe a que es probable que los sujetos masculinos tuvieran
"pensamientos erticos" para llegar ms rpidamente al orgasmo. En la excursin hacia la
cima del placer participa tambin el cerebelo, que coordina la motricidad y como se ha
descubierto en fecha reciente elabora las emociones.
/Qu sucede cola mujer? Para descubrir si el orgasmo femenino transcurre de forma
similar, el mismo equipo de investigacin pidi a doce hombres que llevaran a sus
respectivas parejas al clmax estimulando su cltoris. Aqu tambin todas las mujeres
tenan la cabeza dentro de un escner TEP.
Pero algo inesperado estuvo a punto de arruinar el experimento: los pies fros de las
mujeres les impedan relajarse. Solventado el problema con unos gruesos calcetines,
comenzaron las mediciones. Cuando las mujeres alcanzaron el orgasmo, se produjo un
fenmeno inesperado y sorprendente: haba grandes reas del cerebro que mostraban
una actividad disminuida. Sobre todo, la corteza orbitofrontal izquierda, responsable del
control de los impulsos y del autodominio, apenas si evidenciaba signos de agitacin.
A continuacin se comprob que la corteza dorsomedial prefrontal tambin tena su
actividad mermada. Esta zona participa en la percepcin moral y en los juicios sociales y,
cuando permanece en suspenso, se produce una desinhibicin y una disminucin de la
capacidad
de
decisin.
En las mujeres, consecuentemente, el abandonarse se encuentra en primer lugar, segn
las conclusiones del equipo de investigacin. Concomitante con ese abandono, la
reduccin de la actividad cerebral de las reas mencionadas. La recompensa por
semejante inactividad lo constituye un estado de embriaguez desencadenado por una
onda de dopamina.Con todo, la condicin principal para que la mujer alcance el clmax es
que est relajada: Se conoce desde hace mucho tiempo que las angustias y las
preocupaciones deben evitarse si una mujer quiere alcanzar el orgasmo; pero ahora
sabemos adems qu es lo que sucede en las profundidades del cerebro", expone Gert
Holstege. Y a todo esto hay que aadir el silencio de los centros emocionales del sistema
lmbico, como la amgdala. Un dato que induce a suponer que las mujeres experimentan el
orgasmo de una manera "aemocional", es decir, carente de emociones
Los descubridores del ciclo de reaccin sexual, Virginia Johnson y William Howell Masters
se haban adelantado en tal suposicin. En 1966 hablaron de una "ligera obnubilacin de
la consciencia durante el orgasmo de la mujer". De tal manera que si una mujer finge el
orgasmo, se puede distinguir el engao mediante la tomografa computarizada. "Aunque
muchas fingen muy bien", seala Holstege.

Pero no faltan semejanzas en el varn y la mujer. Por ejemplo, una disminucin de la

actividad del neocortex, es decir, del rea de las "capacidades conscientes". Lo que indica
que los cerebros de ambos sexos experimentan una "pequea muerte", tras la cual
despiertan pronto a una nueva vida.
Kiehl y su experimento con psicpatas
Kent Kiehl has studied hundreds of psychopaths. Kiehl is one of the
world's leading investigators of psychopathy and a professor at the
University of New Mexico. He says he can often see it in their eyes:
There's an intensity in their stare, as if they're trying to pick up signals
on how to respond. But the eyes are not an element of psychopathy,
just a clue.
Officially, Kiehl scores their pathology on the Hare Psychopathy
Checklist, which measures traits such as the inability to feel empathy or
remorse, pathological lying, or impulsivity.
"The scores range from zero to 40," Kiehl explains in his sunny office
overlooking a golf course. "The average person in the community, a
male, will score about 4 or 5. Your average inmate will score about 22.
An individual with psychopathy is typically described as 30 or above.
Brian scored 38.5 basically. He was in the 99th percentile."
"Brian" is Brian Dugan, a man who is serving two life sentences for
rape and murder in Chicago. Last July, Dugan pleaded guilty to raping
and murdering 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in 1983, and he was put on
trial to determine whether he should be executed. Kiehl was hired by
the defense to do a psychiatric evaluation.
In a videotaped interview with Kiehl, Dugan describes how he only
meant to rob the Nicaricos' home. But then he saw the little girl inside.
"She came to the door and ... I clicked," Dugan says in a flat,
emotionless voice. "I turned into Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll."
On screen, Dugan is dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He seems calm,
even normal until he lifts his hands to take a sip of water and you
see the handcuffs. Dugan is smart his IQ is over 140 but he
admits he has always had shallow emotions. He tells Kiehl that in his
quarter century in prison, he believes he's developed a sense of
remorse.
"And I have empathy, too but it's like it just stops," he says. "I mean,
I start to feel, but something just blocks it. I don't know what it is."

Kiehl says he's heard all this before: All psychopaths claim they feel
terrible about their crimes for the benefit of the parole board.
"But then you ask them, 'What do you mean, you feel really bad?' And
Brian will look at you and go, 'What do you mean, what does it mean?'
They look at you like, 'Can you give me some help? A hint? Can I call a
friend?' They have no way of really getting at that at all," Kiehl says.
Kiehl says the reason people like Dugan cannot access their emotions
is that their physical brains are different. And he believes he has the
brain scans to prove it.
Brain Scanning In A Mobile MRI
On a crystal clear June morning at Albuquerque's Youth Diagnostic and
Development Center, juveniles who have been convicted of violent
offenses march by, craning their necks as a huge trailer drives through
the gates. This is Kiehl's prize a $2 million mobile MRI provided by
the Mind Research Network at the University of New Mexico. Kiehl
transports the mobile MRI to maximum-security prisons around the
state, and over the past few years, he has scanned the brains of more
than 1,100 inmates, about 20 percent of whom are psychopaths.
For ethical reasons, Kiehl could not allow me to watch an inmate's brain
After a few minutes of preparation, researcher Kevin Bache settles into
the brain scanner, where he can look up and see a screen. On the
screen flashes three types of pictures. One kind depicts a moral
violation: He sees several hooded Klansmen setting a cross on fire.
Another type is emotional but morally ambiguous: a car that is on fire
but you don't know why. Another type of photo is neutral: for example,
students standing around a Bunsen burner.
The subjects rate whether the picture is a moral violation on a scale of
1 to 5. Kiehl says most psychopaths do not differ from normal subjects
in the way they rate the photos: Both psychopaths and the average
person rank the KKK with a burning cross as a moral violation. But
there's a key difference: Psychopaths' brains behave differently from
that of a nonpsychopathic person. When a normal person sees a
morally objectionable photo, his limbic system lights up. This is what
Kiehl calls the "emotional circuit," involving the orbital cortex above the
eyes and the amygdala deep in the brain. But Kiehl says when
psychopaths like Dugan see the KKK picture, their emotional circuit
does not engage in the same way.

"We have a lot of data that shows psychopaths do tend to process this
information differently," Kiehl says. "And Brian looked like he was
processing it like the other individuals we've studied with psychopathy."
Kiehl says the emotional circuit may be what stops a person from
breaking into that house or killing that girl. But in psychopaths like
Dugan, the brakes don't work. Kiehl says psychopaths are a little like
people with very low IQs who are not fully responsible for their actions.
The courts treat people with low IQs differently. For example, they can't
get the death penalty.
"What if I told you that a psychopath has an emotional IQ that's like a 5year-old?" Kiehl asks. "Well, if that was the case, we'd make the same
argument for individuals with low emotional IQ that maybe they're
not as deserving of punishment, not as deserving of culpability, etc."
i

Implications Of The Diagnosis

And that's exactly what Dugan's lawyers argued at trial last November.
Attorney Steven Greenberg said that Dugan was not criminally insane.
He knew right from wrong. But he was incapable of making the right
choices.
"Someone shouldn't be executed for a condition that they were born
with, because it's not their fault," Greenberg says. "The crime is their
fault, and he wasn't saying it wasn't his fault, and he wasn't saying, give
[me] a free pass. But he was saying, don't kill me because it's not my
fault that I was born this way."
This argument troubles Steven Erickson, a forensic psychologist and
legal scholar at Widener University School of Law. He notes that
alcoholics have brain abnormalities. Do we give them a pass if they kill
someone while driving drunk?
"What about folks who suffer from depression? They have brain
abnormalities, too. Should they be entitled to [an] excuse under the
law?" he asks. "I think the key idea here is the law is not interested in
brain abnormalities. The law is interested in whether or not someone at
the time that the criminal act occurred understood the difference
between right and wrong."
At trial, Jonathan Brodie, a psychiatrist at NYU Medical School who
was the prosecution's expert witness, went further. Even if Dugan's
brain is abnormal, he testified, the brain does not dictate behavior.

"There may be many, many people who also have psychopathic

tendencies and have similar scans, who don't do antisocial behavior,
who don't rape and kill," Brodie says.
Moreover, Brodie told the jury, Dugan's brain scan in 2009 says nothing
about what his brain was like when he killed Jeanine Nicarico.
"I don't know with Brian Dugan what was going on in his brain" when he
committed his crime, Brodie says. "And I certainly don't know what was
going on from a brain scan that was taken 24 years later."
The jury seemed to zero in on the science, asking to reread all the
testimony about the neuroscience during 10 hours of deliberation. But
in the end, they sentenced Dugan to death. Dugan is appealing the
sentence.
In the meantime, this case signals the beginning of a revolution in the
courtroom, Kiehl says.
"Neuroscience and neuroimaging is going to change the whole
philosophy about how we punish and how we decide who to
incapacitate and how we decide how to deal with people," he says,
echoing comments of a growing number of leading scholars across the
country, including Princeton and Harvard.
Just like DNA, he believes brain scans will eventually be standard fare.
And that, he and others say, could upend our notions of culpability,
crime and punishment.