NEUROSCI 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Nucleus Accumbens, Behavioral Addiction, Basal Ganglia
1 Apr 2016
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Neuro 101 lecture (first of midterm iii) Difference between a motivated behavior and the reward. The endpoint of a series of motivated behaviors in order to attain the reward. Eating/drinking: doing things in order to get food, reinforce behavior via food rewards. Motivation: psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal (reward), which is the reason for the action. Skinner box used to train rats to lever-press in response to x stimulus for y reward. Animal usually introduced into box hungry tendency to work actively for food. Examples plunging dopamine levels during test, huge rise after test if only half lever presses give food, rat learns schedule dopamine levels are much higher because anticipation is even greater: gamblers have extreme dopamine peaks during gambling. **dopamine is the key to all addictive behaviors** Drugs strongly effect our neural system in a dramatic, exaggerated way larger than natural reward.
