I was a third-year medical student at Northwestern on my ICU rotation the first time I saw a dopamine drip. The patient was pale and motionless, his blood pressure dropping by the minute despite large ...

In a study in the Journal of Affective Disorders, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute scientists Pearl Chiu and Brooks Casas investigate how brain signals involved in reward learning might help ...

Using computational models, the researchers studied how the brain's reward-learning system functions in those with depression, especially among individuals experiencing anhedonia, the inability to ...

A new study is challenging one of neuroscience’s most enduring ideas: that the brain’s reward system exists to make us feel good. Instead, researchers argue that it is built to optimize energy.

We have long been told a simple story about reward: Dopamine is the "wanting" molecule that drives us toward goals, and opioids are the "liking" molecules that provide the hit of pleasure once we get ...