Two things drive human actions: needs: food, sleep,
avoidance of pain; and rewards. Any object, occasion, or interest can be a
reward if it motivates us, prompts us to examine, or elicits pleasant feelings.
But how does our brain calculate the value of a compliment and how does that
translate into movement? The solution is in the mental circuit known as the
"worship device."
mental image
The areas of the brain that comprise the "praise
machine"
use the neurotransmitter dopamine to speak.
Dopamine-generating neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) communicate
with neurons within the nucleus accumbens so that we can compare rewards and be
inspired to achieve them.
The neurons in the different areas of the brain that make up
the reward machine speak using dopamine: for example, dopamine-generating
neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the brain communicate with those in
a place called the nucleus accumbens to obtain rewards and inspire behavior.
Neurons that release dopamine fire as we expect to get a reward.
Dopamine also complements the memories associated with the
compliment. It strengthens synapses, the junctions where neurons skip messages,
in the brain's center of knowledge and reminiscence, the hippocampus. Dopamine
signaling in areas of the mind that process emotions, the amygdala, and areas
related to planning and reasoning, the prefrontal cortex, also creates
emotional associations with rewards.
Nucleus accumbens
3D BRAIN
It is no longer the reward itself,
but the expectation of a recompense that most powerfully
affects emotional responses and memories. Learning about reward takes place as
we feast on something surprising, when true praise is different from what we
might expect otherwise. If a compliment is higher than expected, it will
increase dopamine signaling. If the reward is much less than expected, dopamine
signaling decreases. In testing, correctly predicting a reward no longer
changes dopamine signaling because we are not learning anything new.
Responses to dopamine vary from person to being. Some
people's brains retort more strongly to rewards than to punishments, while
others respond more strongly to punishments. The study of reward and motivation
is used a lot with the help of the amygdala. Researchers at Vanderbilt
University have observed that "movement seekers" who are more prone
to hard work have additional dopamine signals in the striatum and prefrontal
cortex, areas known to affect motivation and praise.
Regular decision making involves evaluating risks in the
same way as rewards. Neuroscientists are studying how the mind balances reward
and luck, and how the emotional nation affects that balance.
Emotion-driven selection adjustments with age,
probably because the lateral prefrontal cortex, responsible
for self-law, gradually matures. Teens can also interact with riskier behaviors
because their brains are still maturing and it is very likely that they will
prevail with their friends. Older adults can also make larger volatile
selections, as the characteristics of the prefrontal cortex decrease with age.
The mental reward device reinforces rewarding behaviors and
stops behaviors that lead to punishment. But this device can derail in some
psychiatric disorders. For example, the lateral habenula, an important node in
the mind's reward circuits, appears to encode sentence by inhibiting dopamine
release. Disorders involving inappropriate aggression have stayed linked to
dysfunction in this region of the mind. Additionally, stimulating some areas of
the amygdala can cause rage and aggression, while removing individual sections
of the amygdala will make laboratory animals more docile. Recent research in
laboratory animals further confirms that aggression may result from improper
activation of the mind's praise machine in response to violent social stimuli.
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