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 ...

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 ...

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.