Melanin, Dopamine, and the Myths We Share: What the Science Really Says
Welcome to Sacred Musings, a space where I share reflections from the heart on love, life, caregiving, and the lessons that shape us into who we are. My hope is that these words bring comfort, perspective, and inspiration to anyone walking their own path of healing and growth.
Every now and then, a social media post catches fire, blending science with spiritual, cultural, or conspiratorial claims. One recent post I came across made me pause it claimed that people with less melanin (“so-called white people”) have abnormal levels of dopamine because their melanin is “non-activated.” Intriguing? Yes. Accurate? Not quite.
So I did what I always recommend: slow down, take a breath, and dig deeper.
Here’s what I found and what I think we all deserve to understand.
What Is Melanin, Really?
Melanin is a naturally occurring pigment found in the skin, hair, eyes, and even parts of the brain. It comes in a few forms (such as eumelanin and pheomelanin) and is produced through a process called melanogenesis, which begins with the amino acid tyrosine (Mostert, 2021).
Tyrosine is not just for color it’s also the starting point for dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, neurotransmitters that regulate mood, attention, and motivation (d’Ischia et al., 2020).
So it’s easy to see why someone might think there’s a tug-of-war between melanin and dopamine. But biologically, it doesn’t work that way.
Does More Melanin Mean More Dopamine?
Not exactly.
While it’s true that both melanin and dopamine share tyrosine as a starting point, they follow different enzymatic pathways. In the skin, tyrosine is converted to melanin through the enzyme tyrosinase. In the brain, tyrosine is converted to dopamine via tyrosine hydroxylase and DOPA decarboxylase (Mostert, 2021; d’Ischia et al., 2020).
In simple terms:
In the skin: tyrosine → melanin.
In the brain: tyrosine → dopamine.
The key point is that the amount of melanin in your skin does not determine how much dopamine your brain makes. Dopamine levels are controlled by the brain’s own regulatory systems not pigmentation or race.
What About Neuromelanin?
There’s another fascinating form of melanin called neuromelanin, found in parts of the brain such as the substantia nigra and locus coeruleus regions involved in dopamine regulation and movement control (Vahidzadeh et al., 2018).
Neuromelanin appears to protect neurons by binding harmful metals and neutralizing oxidative stress (Motovilov & Mostert, 2024). However, neuromelanin levels are not determined by skin color. Everyone produces it to some extent, regardless of race.
In conditions like Parkinson’s disease, where dopamine-producing neurons die off, these areas lose their dark neuromelanin pigmentation (Mostert, 2021). This relationship between melanin and dopamine in the brain is functional, not racial.
Where the Myth Misses the Mark
The claim that white people have “non-activated” melanin and therefore lower dopamine levels is not supported by scientific evidence. These ideas often emerge from misinterpretations of melanin biochemistry mixed with cultural or metaphysical frameworks that assign moral or spiritual qualities to pigmentation.
But biology doesn’t moralize. It simply adapts. Melanin’s purpose is photoprotection and redox balance, while dopamine’s purpose is signaling and motivation. They are cousins in chemistry, not in function (d’Ischia et al., 2020; Mostert, 2021).
What We Can Celebrate
It’s still worth celebrating melanin’s brilliance. Beyond its biological role, melanin has shown semiconductive, electrochemical, and bioactive properties that have caught the attention of materials scientists and engineers.
Researchers are exploring melanin-based materials for:
Bioelectronics — because it conducts both ions and electrons (Vahidzadeh et al., 2018).
Energy storage — melanin can act like a natural supercapacitor (Michael et al., 2023).
Neural interfaces — melanin’s soft, biocompatible nature makes it ideal for devices that connect with living tissue (Motovilov & Mostert, 2024).
So yes, melanin is magical in the sense that nature engineered it with remarkable properties that scientists are only beginning to understand.
Science can be spiritual. Knowledge can be empowering. But clarity is always kinder than confusion.
Melanin and dopamine are both awe-inspiring products of the same elegant chemistry one gives us protection, the other gives us emotion and drive. Both are universal, both divine in their own way.
Let’s keep asking bold questions, challenging what we read online, and grounding our truths in both evidence and empathy. That’s where the real magic lives ladies.
References
d’Ischia, M., Napolitano, A., Ball, V., Chen, C.-T., Buehler, M. J., & Didierjean, C. (2020). Melanin biopolymers: Tailoring chemical complexity for diverse functions. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 59(28), 11196–11205. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201914276
Michael, H. S. R., Subiramanian, S., & Thyagarajan, D. (2023). Melanin biopolymers from microbial world with future perspectives—A review. Archives of Microbiology, 205(9), 306. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-023-03642-5
Mostert, A. B. (2021). Melanin, the what, the why and the how: An introductory review for materials scientists interested in flexible and versatile polymers. Polymers, 13(10), 1670. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13101670
Motovilov, K. A., & Mostert, A. B. (2024). Melanin: Nature’s 4th bioorganic polymer. Soft Matter, 20, 5635–5651. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM00491D
Vahidzadeh, E., Kalra, A. P., & Shankar, K. (2018). Melanin-based electronics: From proton conductors to photovoltaics and beyond. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 122, 127–139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2018.09.047