Rubén Baler, neuroscientist: ‘We are guinea pigs. Our attention has become a profitable commodity’
The expert from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) warns that overexposure to screens from an early age can have a negative impact on health
Rubén Baler, an expert in public health and addiction neuroscience from US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), pictured last week in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.FRANCISCO UBILLA
Palma (Spain) – May 05, 2024 – 05:19 CEST
Q. What can be done?
A. We cannot depend on politicians, nor can we wait for scientists to save us. I think the solution is at the local level, in the schools. For now, parents can stop the use of screens in bed, because it affects a child’s sleep. That’s a vicious circle that leads them to get into risky situations… a lack of sleep alters the brain. I don’t understand why kids are allowed to bring devices to class, because that interferes with learning, class dynamics and attention span. It makes no sense.
We have to educate ourselves about how the brain works and [understand] that we’re being taken advantage of. We’re guinea pigs – commodities. Our attention has become a profitable commodity.
Q. For the industry?
A. Yes. We’re paying a price voluntarily and the decision is up to each one of us. Either we’re zombies and sleepwalkers, or we take the reins of our own lives. Right now, we’re selling our souls to the devil, both our privacy and our brains. I understand how difficult it is, because this little device (he points to his cell phone) is everywhere and we depend on it. But we have to make an effort to see the good and the evil. We must try to take advantage of what it offers us for our well-being, while discarding the harmful effects of these technologies.
Q. At NIDA, you focus on researching drug abuse. Which is the substance that worries you the most?
A. In adolescents, the prevalence of alcohol is very problematic, especially in cultures in which it’s normalized. It’s an issue not only because it’s addictive, but because alcohol has neurodegenerative properties, producing holes in the brain over prolonged periods of consumption. The problem is that alcohol is combined with the perception of being low-risk — everyone makes it a normative behavior, as if nothing happens [when you drink]. But something does happen.
Q. And which substance concerns you the most when it comes to adults? In the US, there’s a major opioid crisis.
A. Yes, but what the crisis teaches us is that it’s not about a drug — it’s a phenomenon. [The different drugs] are all symptoms: this epidemic started with prescription drugs (OxyContin, Vicodin, etc.). When we tightened the valve on doctors overprescribing these things, the curve of those prescriptions went down… and the curve of heroin began. When heroin started to rise, traffickers realized they could cut it with something much more powerful: they started creating fentanyl. Hence, synthetic opioids came along. Now, the fourth wave has to do with amphetamines that are cut with heroin and that appear mixed with fentanyl and a new drug — xylazine — which prolongs the psychoactive effects of fentanyl. But these are all symptoms.
We need to worry about what’s important, not just about what’s urgent. Why do people use drugs? What leads them to it? Misery? Hopelessness? Boredom? That’s what needs to be attacked. You have to look for the deep root causes.
Q. And what are they?
A. There’s a financialization of the economy. There are groups that are very interested in the profitability of businesses: if we talk about junk food, these are industries that produce an incredible amount of profit, but the foods are addictive — they don’t help public health. [Digital content] platforms are addictive. The tobacco, cannabis, or alcohol industries produce enormous amounts of profits. And for the owners, for those who sit at shareholder meetings, the only thing that matters to them is the company’s profits… public health isn’t a priority. And, in that equation, the population will always lose. There are increasingly powerful forces that have an interest in making these products more addictive and popular.
Q. Is capitalism the problem?
A. No, I think capitalism is the only system that works. I’m not against capitalism, but I’m against this form of overflowing capitalism that apparently has no sense of responsibility towards citizens.
Q. Can brains that have been made ill from addiction be cured? Can you go back to the beginning?
A. No brain — healthy or sick — goes back to the beginning. If brains are characterized by something, it’s constant change. Learning changes the architecture of the brain, but it can be good or bad learning. And addictions are based on learning through rewards. It’s like riding a bike: can you imagine a situation where you unlearn how to ride a bike? No. Because what was learned that way — with that intensity, in those learning trenches in the brain — cannot be unlearned. Addiction is the same: it will never heal, it won’t go away. The learning trenches are going to stay there. They can be covered with new, better, more passionate, more natural, more evolutionarily appropriate learning… but the trenches are going to remain. That’s why there’s always the risk of relapse.
Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani.
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