Single question

when thinking about dopamine’s role in motivation, what dopaminergic brain pathway is important here? Further, how might manipulating activity of this dopamine pathway affect motivation? For example, the quitting system described in the discussion resources highlights how nociceptin neurons can modulate dopamine release to affect motivated behavior. Where in the brain do they do this? Why would changing dopamine release change behavior?

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Brain Behaviors
Question1: How Motivation Affects our Survival as Humans?
Motivation affects our survival in many ways. All humans are motivated to meet their
basic requirements, such as those for food, water, sex, and companionship. Survival depends on
meeting these needs, but in every situation, the objectives must be achieved in the right amount
and at the right time. Dopamine (DA), a neurotransmitter, plays a critical part in motivational
control, which involves learning what in the world is good and bad and making decisions about
how to act to obtain the good things and avoid the bad ones (Le Heron et al., 2019). Dopamine is
essential for providing you with the drive to work for both short-term and long-term objectives.
Once individuals have achieved their goals, it gives them a sense of fulfillment. When their
requirements are going to be met, dopamine is released. Dopamine was one time believed to
control reward and pleasure and that people release after they get something motivating.
However recent studies show that dopamine motivates individuals to behave in a certain way. In
other terms, it helps human beings do good and avoid negative behavior.
Not only are human beings motivated to seek out stimuli such as shelter, water, food,
they motivated to seek out success, social acceptance and the desire to take or avoid dangerous
situations, to mention a few other factors that affect their behavior. According to the drive
hypothesis of motivation, our bodies have physiological requirements (Le Heron et al., 2019).
We are psychologically driven to move the system from a state of deficit toward balance as our
physiological system works to sustain health.
Question 2: Motivated Behavior
The quitting system, to put it simply, is the mechanism that enables the brain to continue
working even when neuronal pathways are disrupted by cell injury. This quitting system has
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several pros and cons in substance abuse disorder. The quitting system allows the brain to rewire
while a dividual is trying to quit substance use (Kozak et al., 2018). With a variation in mind, the
average time it takes for the brain to rewire is several months to over a year. After three months,
some changes can be observed, including some improvement in the prefrontal cortex and the
capacity for better decision-making. This could be a potential mechanism of treating substance
abuse for several reasons. The quitting system that are at the core of reward systems, however,
are generally believed to take 12 to 14 months to restore to normal levels. It is also largely
responsible for the addictive qualities of pharmaceuticals. Drugs cause the release of dopamine,
which floods the reward region of the brain. The brain experiences structural alterations known
as “neuroplastic adaptations” with repeated use. There is hope despite the serious harm and
alterations that drug use causes to the brain.
There are other treatments that can be more effective for substance abuse disorder. One
of them is Cognitive-behavioral therapy which focuses on helping patients recognize scenarios
where drug use is likely to occur and then teach them how to prevent and manage those
situations (Kozak et al., 2018). Another one is contingency management which depends on
operant conditioning, a technique for teaching through a reliable system of positive
reinforcement. People receive rewards in order to encourage pro-recovery behaviors like
abstinence. Exercise may be useful as an extra treatment approach to combat substance misuse,
according to preliminary research. Exercise enhances prefrontal brain connections, which may
help those who are prone to drug usage make better decisions.
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References
Kozak, K., Lucatch, A. M., Lowe, D. J., Balodis, I. M., MacKillop, J., & George, T. P. (2019).
The neurobiology of impulsivity and substance use disorders: implications for
treatment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1451(1), 71-91.
https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13977
Le Heron, C., Holroyd, C. B., Salamone, J., & Husain, M. (2019). Brain mechanisms underlying
apathy. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 90(3), 302-312.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2018-318265