This study assessed how rewards impacted intrinsic motivation when students were rewarded for achievement while learning an activity, for performing at a specific level on a test, or for both. Undergraduate university students engaged in a problem-solving activity. The design was a 2 2 factorial with 2 levels of reward in a learning phase (reward for achievement, no reward) and 2 levels of rewa...

Reinforcement learning models address animal’s behavioral adaptation to its changing “external” environment, and are based on the assumption that Pavlovian, habitual and goal-directed responses seek to maximize reward acquisition. Negative-feedback models of homeostatic regulation, on the other hand, are concerned with behavioral adaptation in response to the “internal” state of the animal, and...

As a major output station of the basal ganglia, the globus pallidus internal segment (GPi) projects to the thalamus and brainstem nuclei thereby controlling motor behavior. A less well known fact is that the GPi also projects to the lateral habenula (LHb) which is often associated with the limbic system. Using the monkey performing a saccade task with positionally biased reward outcomes, we fou...

Introduction: Natural rewards are essential for survival. However, drug-seeking behaviors can be maladaptive and endanger survival. The present study was conducted to enhance our understanding of how animals respond to food and morphine as natural and drug rewards, respectively, in a conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Methods: We designed a protocol to induce food CPP and compare it ...

In the 1960s, discovery of pleasure system (defined as reward system) in the brain that may underlie drug reward and addiction encouraged many scientists to investigate the mechanisms by which drug abuse affects central nervous system function. In this regard, investigators developed several drugs targeting the brain reward system for drug dependence therapy. However, no positive results obtain...

BACKGROUND Accurate monitoring and integration of both internal and external feedback is crucial for guiding current and future behavior. These aspects of performance monitoring are commonly indexed by two event-related potential (ERP) components: error-related negativity (ERN) and feedback negativity (FN). The ERN indexes internal response monitoring and is sensitive to the commission of erron...

The lateral habenula (LHb) plays an important role in motivational decision making. Neurons in the primate LHb signal negative 'reward prediction errors' and inhibit midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons. These negative reward prediction error signals in the LHb are, at least partly, provided by a distinct group of neurons in the border region of the globus pallidus internal segment (GPb). However, it...