Transcript

I think one of the most important findings in the last few years in neuroscience is that while the molecule dopamine is associated with reward, it's more about motivation and craving. There's a really classic experiment now that people use to demonstrate this. Take two rats, and the rats independently separate cages. Can lever press for food, or when they can access food, there's a little bit of dopamine that's released anytime they get some food. So we always thought that food, like many other rewards, like food, sex, warmth when you're cold, cool when you're too warm, is triggering the release of dopamine.

But someone had the good idea to deplete dopamine in one of those animals, and then what you find is that the animal without dopamine still enjoys food, still enjoys other pleasures. So dopamine is not really involved in the enjoyment of those pleasures. It's involved in motivation.