A new study has shown that dopamine, which plays an important role in setting people's moods, might also have a part to play in people's decision making abilities.
A new study has shown that dopamine, which plays an important role in setting people's moods, might also have a part to play in people's decision making abilities.
Experiments have shown that altering levels of the chemical in the brain influences the decisions people make.
Expectation of Pleasure Enhanced by Dopamine
New research from the UCL Institute of Neurology says that enhancing the effects of the brain chemical dopamine influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure.
New research from the UCL Institute of Neurology says that enhancing the effects of the brain chemical dopamine influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure.
In the current study, researchers suspected that he signal was dopamine.
They sought to determine how people make complex decisions when their dopamine system has been tampered with.
Researchers Find Link Between Bursting Activity Of Midbrain Dopamine Neurons And Behavior
According to a study phasic firing of midbrain dopamine neurons helps the brain to differentiate between rewarding and aversive events.
According to a study phasic firing of midbrain dopamine neurons helps the brain to differentiate between rewarding and aversive events.
They were then given a sugar pill and asked to imagine themselves in each of 40 of the destinations.
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Drug Used to Improve Cognition Affects Dopamine?Suggests Potential for Abuse
Preliminary research in healthy men suggests that the narcolepsy drug modafinil, increasingly being used to enhance cognitive abilities, affects the activity of dopamine in the brain
Preliminary research in healthy men suggests that the narcolepsy drug modafinil, increasingly being used to enhance cognitive abilities, affects the activity of dopamine in the brain
They rated all the destinations again, and a day later they were asked where they would prefer to go, out of paired lists of holidays.
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Study Says Dopamine Helps Us Stay Awake Even When We Feel Sleepy
Just one sleepless night can raise the amount of the chemical dopamine in the human brain, says a new imaging research, which explains why people stay awake despite the urge to sleep.
Just one sleepless night can raise the amount of the chemical dopamine in the human brain, says a new imaging research, which explains why people stay awake despite the urge to sleep.
Study leader Dr Tali Sharot, from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuro-imaging at UCL, said humans made far more complex decisions than other animals, such as what job to take and whether to start a family, and it seemed dopamine played an important part in that.
"Our results indicate that when we consider alternative options when making real-life decisions, dopamine has a role in signalling the expected pleasure from those possible future events," BBC News quoted Sharot as saying "We then use that signal to make our choices," Sharot added.
The findings are published in journal The Current Biology.
Source-ANI
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