PSYC20006 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Impulsivity, Opportunity Cost, Addiction

• School: University of Melbourne
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC20006
• Professor: Stefan Bode

Document Summary

Pharmacology of reward & addiction dopamine & desire. Dopamine (da) pathways: substantial nigra (sn): motor control, ventral tegmental area (vta): motivation & emotional response, reward/desire/addiction. Dopamine + parkinson"s: caused by death of da cells in sn, characterised by: Initial: motor tremor: later: cognitive impairments, dementia, symptoms: reduced executive function, no cure but symptoms reducible with drugs & deep brain stimulation, treatment can cause: If unexpected reward occurs, da neurons become more active and release burst of da. If reward repeatedly given after stimulus (e. g. beep: reward expected and no da released with reward, da instead released at time of beep. Incentives help with motivation by counterbalancing the opportunity cost: opportunity cost: everything else rewarding you could do at this time, cognitive tasks with low success particularly unpleasant, might bias someone towards disengaging and selecting low- cost guess" option. Gambling: unpredictability adds to boost of da. If you predictably lost every 70% every bet it"s not addictive.