Even thinking about a favorite food triggered release of dopamine, a feel-good hormone also produced during sex and drug use.
Dopamine is a type of monoamine neurotransmitter. It’s made in your brain and acts as a chemical messenger, communicating messages between nerve cells in your brain and your brain and the rest of your body. Dopamine also acts as a hormone.
Dopamine is most notably involved in helping us feel pleasure as part of the brain’s reward system. Sex, shopping, smelling cookies baking in the oven — all these things can trigger dopamine release, or a “dopamine rush.”
The “feel-good” factor, however, is one of the elements behind dopamine’s darker side: Several illegal recreational drugs stimulate its release and increase the amount of dopamine in the brain.