45: Reward And Addiction Flashcards
Motivation
A process that mediates a goal-directed response to changes in external or internal environment
How does a surge of motivation trigger salience?
If a surge of motivation to consume a reward lasts beyond the time the individual is exposed to that cue -> triggers salience
Reinforcement
Consequence of operant (learned) behaviors that alter the probability that a behavior will be repeated under similar conditions each time
Aversion
Negative reinforcement of behavior, learning to avoid future encounters
Hedonia
Pleasure; subjectively positive sensation
Purpose of hedonia
Promotes behaviors consistent with survival of self and species
Salience
Something important in the surrounding environment worth paying attention to; the attention-grabbing feature of rewarding/valuable objects
Major nt involved in reward and pleasure
Dopamine
Three parts of a reward
- Hedonic effect
- Motivation to obtain the reward bc of its salience
- Associated learning
Reward learning: what neuron type and what they do
DA neurons: encode discrepancy between reward prediction and the actual reward received -> reward learning
Reward prediction error
Mismatch between actual events and the reward elicited
reward prediction error: difference btwn an unpredicted reward, a fully predicted reward, and omission of reward
- Unpredicted: activation (positive prediction error)
- Fully predicted: no response
- Omission of reward: depression (negative prediction error)
Drugs vs natural rewards in the RPE signaling
Drugs: repetition of RPE signals continues to reinforce drug-related cues and behaviors
Natural rewards: produce error-correcting RPE signals until the prediction matches the actual events
Examples of drugs that directly increase dopamine vs indirectly
Directly: coke, amphetamines, ecstasy
Indirectly: nicotine, alcohol, opiates, weed
How drugs are more powerful than natural rewards
They produce longer and larger increases in dopamine
