It is becoming clearer how neurobiological mechanisms generate 'liking'and
'wanting'components of food reward. Mesocorticolimbic mechanisms that enhance …

Dopamine is a critical modulator of both learning and motivation. This presents a problem:
how can target cells know whether increased dopamine is a signal to learn or to move? It is …

Addiction is commonly identified with habitual nonmedical self-administration of drugs. It is
usually defined by characteristics of intoxication or by characteristics of withdrawal …

Understanding how the brain translates a structured sequence of sounds, such as music,
into a pleasant and rewarding experience is a fascinating question which may be crucial to …

Pleasure is mediated by well-developed mesocorticolimbic circuitry and serves adaptive
functions. In affective disorders, anhedonia (lack of pleasure) or dysphoria (negative affect) …

This review takes a historical perspective on concepts in the psychology of motivation and
emotion, and surveys recent developments, debates and applications. Old debates over …

Nucleus accumbens dopamine is known to play a role in motivational processes, and
dysfunctions of mesolimbic dopamine may contribute to motivational symptoms of …

Projections from the lateral hypothalamus (LH) to the ventral tegmental area (VTA),
containing both GABAergic and glutamatergic components, encode conditioned responses …

Motivation has been defined as the process that allows organisms to regulate their internal
and external environment, and control the probability, proximity and availability of stimuli. As …

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