The brain's sensitivity to rewarding experiences -- a critical factor in motivation and attention -- can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions, according to a new study. MIT neuroscientists have found ...

Monkey experiments hint at a "motivation brake" pathway between two brain regions. Manipulating it may lead to new treatments ...

Scientists have uncovered a way to manipulate the pathway in monkey brains that puts the brakes on motivation.

People who are depressed very often show reduced interest in experiencing or obtaining pleasure, a symptom called anhedonia that research has traced to dysfunction in the brain’s reward system. In ...

Researchers have identified one of the key brain circuits for deciding the value of a reward based on the rewards that others have received, known as socially subjective reward valuation. A better ...

What if our brains learned from rewards not just by averaging them but by considering their full range of possibilities? A ...

Procrastination has a name: the VS–VP circuit — and this team of researchers has ideas for how to switch it off ...

Methamphetamine doesn’t just spike levels of the pleasure-inducing hormone dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain – it ...

Some people simply don’t derive pleasure from listening to music. There is nothing wrong with their hearing, and they enjoy plenty of other experiences, but for some strange reason music does ...

Okazaki, Japan – Although you might never have consciously considered it, it’s very likely that when you receive a reward, part of the value that you place on it depends on what other people have ...