In this review, we explore how reward signals shape perceptual learning in animals and humans. Perceptual learning is the well-established phenomenon by which extensive practice elicits selective improvement in one's perceptual discrimination of basic visual features, such as oriented lines or moving stimuli. While perceptual learning has long been thought to rely on 'top-down' processes, such ...

The analysis of the behavioural and neural mechanisms of reinforcement and motivation has benefited from the recent application of learning theory and better anatomical knowledge of the connectivity of certain key neural structures, such as the nucleus accumbens. This progress has enabled the dissection of motivational processes into components that can begin to be related to the functioning of...

The analysis of the neural mechanisms responsible for reward-related learning has benefited from recent studies of the effects of dopamine on synaptic plasticity. Dopamine-dependent synaptic plasticity may lead to strengthening of selected inputs on the basis of an activity-dependent conjunction of sensory afferent activity, motor output activity, and temporally related firing of dopamine cells...

Criminal behaviour poses a big challenge for society. A thorough understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying criminality could optimize its prevention and management. Specifically,elucidating the neural mechanisms underpinning reward expectation might be pivotal to understanding criminal behaviour. So far no study has assessed reward expectation and its mechanisms in a criminal s...

As we have seen, P2P VoIP software, such as Skype, has emerged from the current generation of telecommunication systems. However, establishing communication applications based on P2P networks without considering the operational models of the Internet presents potential dangers. In this study, we treat a VoIP telephone conversation as a dynamic game and compare the ex post reward mechanism with ...

Associating stimuli with the prospect of reward typically facilitates responses to those stimuli due to an enhancement of attentional and cognitive-control processes. Such reward-induced facilitation might be especially helpful when cognitive-control mechanisms are challenged, as when one must overcome interference from irrelevant inputs. Here, we investigated the neural dynamics of reward effe...

When an organism receives a reward, it is crucial to know which of many candidate actions caused this reward. However, recent work suggests that learning is possible even when this most fundamental assumption is not met. We used novel reward-guided learning paradigms in two fMRI studies to show that humans deploy separable learning mechanisms that operate in parallel. While behavior was dominat...

and subcortical structures that participate both in drug Baltimore, Maryland 21224 reward and in more natural motivational phenomena. For example, Hans Breiter (Massachusetts General Hospital) showed functional magnetic resonance imaging At the end of the decade of the brain, the study of (fMRI) data implicating a generalized limbic and cortical neural mechanisms has come to dominate the study ...

Emerging lines of research suggest that both testosterone and maladaptive reward processing can modulate behavioral dysregulation. Yet, to date, no integrative account has been provided that systematically explains neuroendocrine function, dysregulation of reward, and behavioral dysregulation in a unified perspective. This is particularly important given specific neuroendocrine systems are pote...