[DemonRaven]

http://neurosciencenews.com/dopamine-learning-reward-3157/

If you’ve ever felt lackadaisical to start a new project, focus on imagining the joy of completing it, say University of Michigan researchers.

Both are a function of dopamine, which explains the motivation to start and the satisfaction of finishing work, they say.

In a new study, U-M researchers Arif Hamid and Joshua Berke, professor of psychology and biomedical engineering, argue that dopamine levels continuously signal how good or valuable the current situation is regarding obtaining a reward. This message helps people decide how vigorously to work toward a goal, while also allowing themselves to learn from mistakes.

“We provide a new theoretical account for how dopamine affects learning (what to do later) and motivation (getting fired up to go now) simultaneously,” said study lead author Hamid, U-M neuroscience doctoral student.