Cannabis potency and use among teenagers has increased in recent years. Researchers are looking at the risks of smoking and ...

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 ...

Researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences have found a surprising connection between a fungus associated with alcohol use disorder and the ...

Some people bounce back from trauma, but others get caught in depressive loops that sap the joy from their lives. Now, scientists at UC San Francisco are learning how the brain creates these divergent ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.