How isolation fuels opioid addiction

What do Tourette syndrome, heroin addiction and social media obsession all have in common? They converge in an area of the brain called the striatum, says neuroscientist Rachel Wurzman -- and this critical discovery could reshape our understanding of the opioid crisis. Sharing insights from her research, Wurzman shows how social isolation contributes to relapse and overdose rates and reveals how meaningful human connection could offer a potentially powerful source of recovery.

What does it mean to be normal?

And what does it mean to be sick?

I've asked myself this question
from the time I was about seven,

when I was diagnosed
with Tourette syndrome.

Tourette's is a neurological disorder

characterized by stereotyped movements
I perform against my will, called tics.

Now, tics are technically involuntary,

in the sense that they occur
without any conscious attention

or intention on my part.

But there's a funny thing
about how I experience tics.

They feel more unvoluntary
than involuntary,

because I still feel like it's me
moving my shoulder,

not some external force.

Also, I get this uncomfortable sensation,
called premonitory urge,

right before tics happen,

and particularly
when I'm trying to resist them.

Now, I imagine most of you out there
understand what I'm saying,

but unless you have Tourette's,
you probably think you can't relate.

But I bet you can.

So, let's try a little experiment here
and see if I can give you

a taste of what my experience feels like.

Alright, ready?

Don't blink.

No, really, don't blink.

And besides dry eyes, what do you feel?

Phantom pressure?

Eyelids tingling?

A need?

Are you holding your breath?

(Laughter)

Aha.

(Laughter)

That's approximately
what my tics feels like.

Now, tics and blinking,
neurologically speaking, are not the same,

but my point is that you
don't have to have Tourette's

to be able to relate to my experience
of my premonitory urges,

because your brain can give you
similar experiences and feelings.

So, let's shift the conversation from
what it means to be normal versus sick

to what it means that a majority of us
are both normal and sick.

Because in the final analysis,
we're all humans

whose brains provide
for a spectrum of experiences.

And everything on that spectrum
of human experiences

is ultimately produced by brain systems

that assume a spectrum
of different states.

So again, what does it mean to be normal,

and what does it mean to be sick,

when sickness exists on the extreme end
of a spectrum of normal?

As both a researcher who studies
differences in how individuals' brains

wire and rewire themselves,

and as a Touretter
with other related diagnoses,

I have long been fascinated
by failures of self-regulation

on the impulsive and compulsive
behavioral spectrums.

Because so much of my own
experience of my own body

and my own behavior

has existed all over that map.

So with the spotlight
on the opioid crisis,

I've really found myself
wondering lately:

Where on the spectrum
of unvoluntary behavior

do we put something like abusing
opioid painkillers or heroin?

By now, we all know that the opioid crisis
and epidemic is out of control.

Ninety-one people die every day
in this country from overdose.

And between 2002 and 2015,

the number of deaths from heroin
increased by a factor of six.

And something about the way
that we treat addiction isn't working,

at least not for everyone.

It is a fact that people
suffering from addiction

have lost free will

when it comes to their behavior
around drugs, alcohol, food

or other reward-system
stimulating behaviors.

That addiction is a brain-based
disease state

is a medical, neurobiological reality.

But how we relate to that disease --

indeed, how we relate to the concept
of disease when it comes to addiction --

makes an enormous difference
for how we treat people with addictions.

So, we tend to think of pretty much
everything we do as entirely voluntary.

But it turns out
that the brain's default state

is really more like a car
idling in drive than a car in park.

Some of what we think we choose to do

is actually things that we
have become programmed to do

when the brakes are released.

Have you ever joked that your brain
was running on autopilot?

Guess what?

It probably was.

OK?

And the brain's autopilot
is in a structure called the striatum.

So the striatum detects
emotional and sensory motor conditions

and it knows to trigger
whatever behavior you have done most often

in the past under those same conditions.

Do you know why I became a neuroscientist?

Because I wanted to learn
what made me tick.

(Laughter)

Thank you, thank you.

(Laughter)

I've been wanting to use that one
in front of an audience for years.

(Applause)

So in graduate school,
I studied genetic factors

that orchestrate wiring
to the striatum during development.

And yes, that is my former license plate.

(Laughter)

And for the record, I don't recommend

any PhD student get a license plate
with their thesis topic printed on it,

unless they're prepared
for their experiments not to work

for the next two years.

(Laughter)

I eventually did figure it out.

So, my experiments were exploring
how miswiring in the striatum

relates to compulsive behaviors.

Meaning, behaviors that are coerced

by uncomfortable urges
you can't consciously resist.

So I was really excited
when my mice developed

this compulsive behavior,

where they were rubbing their faces
and they couldn't seem to stop,

even when they were wounding themselves.

OK, excited is the wrong word,

I actually felt terrible for them.

I thought that they had tics,
evidence of striatal miswiring.

And they were compulsive,

but it turned out, on further testing,

that these mice showed
an aversion to interacting

and getting to know other unfamiliar mice.

Which was unusual, it was unexpected.

The results implied that the striatum,

which, for sure, is involved
in compulsive-spectrum disorders,

is also involved in human
social connection and our ability to --

not human social connection,
but our ability to connect.

So I delved deeper,

into a field called social neuroscience.

And that is a newer,
interdisciplinary field,

and there I found reports
that linked the striatum

not just to social anomalies in mice,

but also in people.

As it turns out, the social
neurochemistry in the striatum

is linked to things
you've probably already heard of.

Like oxytocin,

which is that hormone that makes
cuddling feel all warm and fuzzy.

But it also implicates
signaling at opioid receptors.

There are naturally occurring
opioids in your brain

that are deeply linked
to social processes.

Experiments with naloxone,
which blocks opioid receptors,

show us just how essential
this opioid-receptor signaling is

to social interaction.

When people are given naloxone --
it's an ingredient in Narcan,

that reverses opioid overdoses
to save lives.

But when it's given to healthy people,

it actually interfered
with their ability to feel connected

to people they already knew
and cared about.

So, something about not having
opioid-receptor binding

makes it difficult for us to feel
the rewards of social interaction.

Now, for the interest of time,

I've necessarily gotten rid
of some of the scientific details,

but briefly, here's where we're at.

The effects of social disconnection
through opioid receptors,

the effects of addictive drugs

and the effects of abnormal
neurotransmission

on involuntary movements
and compulsive behaviors

all converge in the striatum.

And the striatum
and opioid signaling in it

has been deeply linked with loneliness.

When we don't have enough signaling
at opioid receptors,

we can feel alone in a room full of people
we care about and love, who love us.

Social neuroscientists, like Dr. Cacioppo
at the University of Chicago,

have discovered that loneliness
is very dangerous.

And it predisposes people

to entire spectrums
of physical and mental illnesses.

Think of it like this:
when you're at your hungriest,

pretty much any food
tastes amazing, right?

So similarly, loneliness
creates a hunger in the brain

which neurochemically hypersensitizes
our reward system.

And social isolation
acts through receptors

for these naturally occurring opioids
and other social neurotransmitters

to leave the striatum in a state

where its response to things
that signal reward and pleasure

is completely, completely over the top.

And in this state of hypersensitivity,

our brains signal deep dissatisfaction.

We become restless,
irritable and impulsive.

And that's pretty much when I want you
to keep the bowl of Halloween chocolate

entirely across the room for me,
because I will eat it all.

I will.

And that brings up another thing
that makes social disconnection

so dangerous.

If we don't have the ability
to connect socially,

we are so ravenous for our social
neurochemistry to be rebalanced,

we're likely to seek relief from anywhere.

And if that anywhere
is opioid painkillers or heroin,

it is going to be a heat-seeking missile
for our social reward system.

Is it any wonder people in today's world
are becoming addicted so easily?

Social isolation --

excuse me --

contributes to relapse.

Studies have shown that people
who tend to avoid relapse

tend to be people who have broad,
reciprocal social relationships

where they can be
of service to each other,

where they can be helpful.

Being of service lets people connect.

So --

if we don't have the ability
to authentically connect,

our society increasingly lacks
this ability to authentically connect

and experience things that
are transcendent and beyond ourselves.

We used to get this transcendence

from a feeling of belonging
to our families and our communities.

But everywhere, communities are changing.

And social and economic disintegration
is making this harder and harder.

I'm not the only person to point out

that the areas in the country
most economically hard hit,

where people feel most desolate
about their life's meaning,

are also the places

where there have been communities
most ravaged by opioids.

Social isolation acts
through the brain's reward system

to make this state of affairs
literally painful.

So perhaps it's this pain,
this loneliness,

this despondence

that's driving so many of us
to connect with whatever we can.

Like food.

Like handheld electronics.

And for too many people,
to drugs like heroin and fentanyl.

I know someone who overdosed,
who was revived by Narcan,

and she was mostly angry
that she wasn't simply allowed to die.

Imagine for a second how that feels,
that state of hopelessness, OK?

But the striatum is also a source of hope.

Because the striatum gives us a clue
of how to bring people back.

So, remember that the striatum
is our autopilot,

running our behaviors on habit,

and it's possible to rewire,
to reprogram that autopilot,

but it involves neuroplasticity.

So, neuroplasticity
is the ability of brains

to reprogram themselves,

and rewire themselves,
so we can learn new things.

And maybe you've heard the classic
adage of plasticity:

neurons that fire together, wire together.

Right?

So we need to practice social
connective behaviors

instead of compulsive behaviors,
when we're lonely,

when we are cued to remember our drug.

We need neuronally firing
repeated experiences

in order for the striatum to undergo
that necessary neuroplasticity

that allows it to take
that "go find heroin" autopilot offline.

And what the convergence
of social neuroscience, addiction

and compulsive-spectrum disorders
in the striatum suggests

is that it's not simply enough

to teach the striatum healthier
responses to compulsive urges.

We need social impulses
to replace drug-cued compulsive behaviors,

because we need to rebalance,
neurochemically, our social reward system.

And unless that happens,

we're going to be left
in a state of craving.

No matter what besides our drug
we repeatedly practice doing.

I believe that the solution
to the opioid crisis

is to explore how social
and psychospiritual interventions

can act as neurotechnologies in circuits

that process social
and drug-induced rewards.

One possibility is to create
and study scalable tools

for people to connect with one another

over a mutual interest

in recovery through
psychospiritual practices.

And as such, psychospiritual practice
could involve anything

from people getting together
as megafans of touring jam bands,

or parkour jams, featuring
shared experiences of vulnerability

and personal growth,

or more conventional things,
like recovery yoga meetups,

or meetings centered
around more traditional conceptions

of spiritual experiences.

But whatever it is,

it needs to activate

all of the neurotransmitter
systems in the striatum

that are involved
in processing social connection.

Social media can't go
deep enough for this.

Social media doesn't so much
encourage us to share,

as it does to compare.

It's the difference between having
superficial small talk with someone

and authentic, deeply connected
conversation with eye contact.

And stigma also keeps us separate.

There's a lot of evidence
that it keeps us sick.

And stigma often makes it safer
for addicts to connect with other addicts.

But recovery groups centered around
reestablishing social connections

could certainly be inclusive
of people who are seeking recovery

for a range of mental health problems.

My point is, when we connect
around what's broken,

we connect as human beings.

We heal ourselves
from the compulsive self-destruction

that was our response
to the pain of disconnection.

When we think of neuropsychiatric
illnesses as a spectrum of phenomenon

that are part of what make us human,

then we remove the otherness of people
who struggle with self-destruction.

We remove the stigma

between doctors and patients
and caregivers.

We put the question of what it means
to be normal versus sick

back on the spectrum
of the human condition.

And it is on that spectrum
where we can all connect

and seek healing together,
for all of our struggles with humanness.

Thank you for letting me share.

(Applause)