Recent years have seen a rejuvenation of interest in studies of motivation–cognition
interactions arising from many different areas of psychology and neuroscience. The present …

Reward contains separable psychological components of learning, incentive motivation and
pleasure. Most computational models have focused only on the learning component of …

Understanding memory formation, storage and retrieval requires knowledge of the
underlying neuronal circuits. In Drosophila, the mushroom body (MB) is the major site of …

The biological bases of wanting have been characterized in mammals, but whether an
equivalent wanting system exists in insects remains unknown. In this study, we focused on …

Individuals make choices and prioritize goals using complex processes that assign value to
rewards and associated stimuli. During Pavlovian learning, previously neutral stimuli that …

Evidence supports at least two methods for learning about reward and punishment and
making predictions for guiding actions. One method, called model-free, progressively …

Cognitive control is subjectively costly, suggesting that engagement is modulated in
relationship to incentive state. Dopamine appears to play key roles. In particular, dopamine …

What we eat, when and how much, all are influenced by brain reward mechanisms that
generate “liking” and “wanting” for foods. As a corollary, dysfunction in reward circuits might …

The striatal dopaminergic system has been implicated in reinforcement learning (RL), motor
performance, and incentive motivation. Various computational models have been proposed …

Dopamine neurons located in the midbrain play a role in motivation that regulates approach
behavior (approach motivation). In addition, activation and inactivation of dopamine neurons …