As a class project, a group of students wrote a skit based on the premise that, in the future, caffeine would be proscribed as an illegal drug. They envisioned that caffeine users would go to extreme lengths to get their “fix.” While this scenario is laughable science fiction, could it portend less dramatic changes in our country’s notion of caffeine-related safety? A comparison between two stimulants, cocaine and caffeine, might make you think differently about that question.
Recall that the reward pathway, in which dopamine is a primary neurotransmitter, is essential to our ability to feel good about survival activities but is also activated by things that do not promote and can potentially hinder our survival (Cunningham et al., 2012). Whether gambling, gaming, or using drugs of abuse, activation of the reward pathway can result in addiction. There are a number of ways to increase the amount of...
University of California Press