The Chemistry of Hangovers
In time for St. Patrick's Day, an American Chemical Society video details why the morning after feels so bad.
Katherine Bourzac 03/16/2010
- 1 Comment
When your head is pounding and you can't stomach even a dry piece of toast, who among us has not asked why? Not, "Why did I drink so much?" but "Why is this happening to me?"
A video from the American Chemical Society has the explanation:
Chemistry of Alcohol & Hangovers: Part Two from ACS Pressroom on Vimeo.
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6 Comments
The First Question
For the answer to "why did I drink so much", see Why Choose This Book*, by Reed Montague on computational neurology. You drank so much because alcohol and drugs trigger the release of dopamine, normally released when your experience exceeds the expectations in the mental model ("IF stress, joy, hunger, etc. THEN have a drink or drug". The dopamine reinforces - primes - those neural networks and makes it more likely that they will be activated by the stimulus next time.
*also in paperback as Your Brain is (mostly) All Right.
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