This guest post was written by Bastien Blain, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at UCL. Our obsession with happiness isn’t as modern as it may seem. Philosophers from Aristotle to Jeremy Bentham have all ...

Past neuroscience and psychology research has repeatedly demonstrated the crucial role of rewards in how humans and other animals acquire behaviors that promote their survival. Dopaminergic neurons, ...

Past research has consistently highlighted the crucial role of dopamine neurons in reward learning. Reward learning is a process through which humans and other animals acquire different information, ...

Adolescence is a time of increased risk taking, but do adolescents learn differently from reward and punishment, or from childhood to adoelscence? Source: Cotonbro studio/Pexels This post was written ...

Research shows that reward-based learning requires the two neuromodulators to balance one another's influence -- like the accelerator and brakes on a car If you've heard of two of the brain's chemical ...

If you've heard of two of the brain's chemical neurotransmitters, it's probably dopamine and serotonin. Never mind that glutamate and GABA do most of the work - it's the thrill of dopamine as the ...

Rewards are necessary for learning, but they may actually mask true knowledge, a new Johns Hopkins University study with rodents and ferrets finds. The findings, published today in Nature ...

If you love it when a musician strikes that unexpected but perfect chord, you are not alone. New research shows the musically unexpected activates the reward centre of our brains, and makes us learn ...

Reward has many interesting functions, but knowing how to use it in learning and boosting memory is not as straightforward as one would think. From gamification to paying for good grades, educators ...

Our obsession with happiness isn’t as modern as it may seem. Philosophers from Aristotle to Jeremy Bentham have all argued that subjective wellbeing is crucial. Bentham even suggested that “it is the ...