UNDERSTANDING THE HIGH MIND: HUMANS ARE STILL EVOLVING GENETICALLY

The total population of the United States at the turn of the 21 st century was 281,421,906. The total number of people above the age of 12 years old was estimated at 249 million. The National Institutes on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have surveyed persons age 12 and older and found that in the year 2001, a total of 104 million people have used illegal drugs in their life (ever used), 32 million used a psychoactive drug in the past year (20002001) and 18 million used a psychoactive drug in the past 30 days. Interestingly this does not include Alcohol. We must ask then, who are the people that could just say NO? When almost half-of the US population have indulged in illegal drug practices, when our presidential candidates are forced to dodge the tricky question of their past history involving illegal drug use, and when almost every American has sloshed down a martini or two in their life time, there must be a reason, there must be a need, there must be a natural response for humans to imbibe at such high rates. There is even a more compelling question surrounding the millions who seek out high risk novelty. Why do millions have this innate drive in face of putting themselves in harms-way? Why are millions paying the price of their indiscretions in our jails, in hospitals, in wheel chairs and are lying dead in our cemeteries. What price must we pay for pleasure seeking or just plain getting “HIGH”? Maybe the answer lies within our brain. Maybe it is in our genome? Utilization of the candidate vs the common variant approach may be parsimonious as it relates to unraveling the addiction riddle. In this commentary we have discussed evidence, theories and conjecture about the “High Mind” and its relationship to evolutionary genetics and drug seeking behavior as impacted by genetic polymorphisms. We consider the meaning of recent findings in genetic research including an exploration of the candidate vs the common variant approach to addiction, epigenetics, genetic memory and the genotype-phenotype problem. We speculate about the neurological basis of pleasure seeking and addiction, the human condition and