Recent research suggests that extrinsic rewards promote memory consolidation through dopaminergic modulation processes. However, no conclusive behavioral evidence exists given that the influence of extrinsic reward on attention and motivation during encoding and consolidation processes are inherently confounded. The present study provides behavioral evidence that extrinsic rewards (i.e., moneta...

How do addictive drugs hijack the brain's reward system? This review speculates how normal, physiological reward processes may be affected by addictive drugs. Addictive drugs affect acute responses and plasticity in dopamine neurons and postsynaptic structures. These effects reduce reward discrimination, increase the effects of reward prediction error signals, and enhance neuronal responses to ...

Recent research suggests that extrinsic rewards promote memory consolidation through dopaminergic modulation processes. However, no conclusive behavioral evidence exists given that the influence of extrinsic reward on attention and motivation during encoding and consolidation processes are inherently confounded. The present study provides behavioral evidence that extrinsic rewards (i.e., moneta...

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...

This article focuses on recent modeling studies of dopamine neuron activity and their influence on behavior. Activity of midbrain dopamine neurons is phasically increased by stimuli that increase the animal's reward expectation and is decreased below baseline levels when the reward fails to occur. These characteristics resemble the reward prediction error signal of the temporal difference (TD) ...

Reward is thought to enhance cognitive control processes in various ways, but the impact of reward on the context-sensitivity of cognitive control remains unclear. Evidence from perception and attention studies suggests that a good outcome, in contrast to a suboptimal outcome, acts to increase saliency and attentional capture for attended visual features that led to this outcome. As a consequen...