Brain Prize goes to dopamine, the addiction neurotransmitter

Scientists who uncovered secrets of dopamine & its role in reward & addiction in the brain honoured in this year's Brain Prize.

NEUROSCIENCE, NEUROTRANSMITTERS & ADDICTION

Brain Prize goes to dopamine & addiction research

The Brain Prize has been awarded this year to a group of neuroscientists who researched how the chemical dopamine influences behaviour in the brain's reward system.

The Brain Prize is a €1 million prize for outstanding contributions to European neuroscience awarded annually since 2011 by Denmark’s Lundbeck Foundation (see here).

The brain's reward system influences a person's happiness, pleasure and motivation to do things.

The reward system is also responsible for the social problem of addiction including the most difficult to solve problem of drug addiction.

SCHULTZ OF CAMBRIDGE

Professor Wolfram Schultz of the University of Cambridge, while studying neurons in the brain that release dopamine, discovered in experiments that a fruit juice reward given to animals for successfully completing tasks resulted in certain neurons being fired, almost as if the neurons were showing their appreciation and thanks for the fruit juice.

Further experiments showed that if the animals learned to associate certain images with an upcoming fruit juice award, the image alone would cause the neurons to fire in appreciation.

This reward mechanism is seen to be crucial to the biological processes of evolution allowing living things to find the food, drink and sex they need to survive and reproduce. 

DAYAN OF SALK INSTITUTE

Peter Dayan of the Salk Institute in San Diego, California and University College London was also doing experiments on the signals produced by dopamine neurons.

In order to make survival choices, people must predict what is going to happen in the environment around them.

People then monitor the difference between what is expected and what actually happens called the "reward prediction error" and use this to adjust behaviour and make future survival decisions.

DOLAN OF MAX PLANCK CENTRE IN GERMANY

Ray Dolan is the Director of the Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing in Germany and uses brain imaging in his research to understand human emotion, learning and decision-making.

From the age of 30 people start to lose about 10% of their dopamine neurons every decade

The neuro-degenerative mental disorder known as Parkinson’s disease is caused by excessive loss of dopamine neurons. The loss of too many neurons leds to movement problems and an inability to learn and make decisions.

Dopamine boosting drugs have been given to Parkinson's patients to restore movement but there have been some strange side-effects such as compulsive gambling habits or becoming a shopaholic, when the higher dopamine levels enhance the reward sensations.

The three scientists will be honoured and presented with their prizes on the 4th of May in Copenhagen, Denmark by Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39183178
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grete_Lundbeck_European_Brain_Research_Prize
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2123578-brains-reward-system-earns-researchers-e1-million-prize/
https://wellcome.ac.uk/news/uk-neuroscientists-win-brain-prize
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/06/obesity-sell-high-calorie-foods-in-plain-packaging-says-2017-brain-prize-winner-wolfram-schultz-peter-dayan-ray-dolan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine

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