If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

Main content

Reward pathway in the brain

The reward pathway of the brain is connected to areas of the brain that control behavior and memory. It begins in the ventral tegmental area, where neurons release dopamine to make you feel pleasure. The brain begins to make connections between the activity and the pleasure, ensuring that we will repeat the behavior. Sometimes this pathway is helpful but other times, it can be devastating. For example, certain drugs can trigger the reward pathway and over time, an addiction can develop.​​​​. Created by Carole Yue.

Want to join the conversation?

  • piceratops tree style avatar for user Thinh Nguyen
    how do we know if if a stimulus is pleasurable in the first place in order for the brain to start releasing dopamine? ( the happy feeling comes from dopamine attaching to amyglada, so we would feel happy after recognizing the stimulus is pleasurable?)
    (6 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • male robot hal style avatar for user Okilus
      Great question. The topic is still under research, but from what I know, rewards are classified into primary and secondary rewards. Primary rewards are also called unlearned rewards: they are the kinds of things that aid your survival. Primary rewards include food and sex, or even peeing after holding it for too long. Some argue that social rewards like grooming and touch, or music are also primary. These primary rewards are thought to be hardwired into our brain to activate the dopamine. In other words, there's a pathway from birth in your brain (That is maybe connected to your digestive system, or maybe it's activated by the sight of food) that activates when you eat food so you can enjoy the experience. Secondary rewards are associated with events that lead to obtaining primary rewards. The best example given for a secondary reward in often presented as obtaining money. Though it is a learned response to enjoy earning money, your brain has learned that in the end it leads to primary rewards.
      Drugs bypass the recognition of reward pathway and give you the reward. I don't know if drugs are considered primary or secondary.
      (14 votes)
  • leaf red style avatar for user Scott Schelp
    At , the Nucleus accumbens (Nacc) does not control the body's motor functions. Traditionally, the dorsal straitum "controls motor functions" which could be a misrepresentation within itself. One could point to the primary motor cortex for that function where as the VTA dorsal straitum pathway might be (the scientist in me is coming out) associated with action selection. Phasic DA release in the VTA Nacc pathway appears to be associated with assigning value to stimuli in an environment/internal environment (seen by schultz and more recently confirmed with optogenetics/Fast scan cyclic voltommetry with sadderis in late 2014) in order to motivate an animal towards the most rewarding stimuli (this includes avoiding negative stimuli, check out Erik B. Oleson). It is also worth noting that the anterior VTA extends to the dorsal striatum (the substantia nigra also extends here) where as the posterior portion of the VTA extends to the medial lateral Nacc.

    DA is not associated with hedonia (pleasure) as laid out by Jeremy Day in a wonderful review on the subject.

    the PFC does not focus attention on a stimuli, the VTA PFC pathway may essentially be a feedback loop for this system but this idea has not been fully explored as of yet. More predominately the VTA-PFC pathway assigns a "cached value" (first put forth by paul philips out at UW) to a stimuli as observed in various fMRI studies (more work needs to be done here).

    I really love Khan academy and I was looking for a introductory video on the subject for incoming lab techs.
    (8 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user Scotty Smith
    Why do serotonin levels go down when dopamine spikes causes pleasure and rewards? I thought some drugs bind to serotonin receptors so that is why people may become happy or experience mood swings? I feel like dopamine and serotonin mechanisms and functions seem to have overlay, and I could really use some clarification with both NT's. Thanks!
    (6 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user fiahmed92
    addiction does not necessarily have to be with drugs correct? what about morbidly obese people who are essentially addicted to eating food. if you add something that makes them sick with the food, they will probably still eat it.
    (4 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • leafers seed style avatar for user Vincenza
      I feel like in the context of obesity, adding a stimulus that makes them sick could actually deter them from eating because the sickness incurred takes more precedence over any pleasure they might gain from eating. As such, behavioral treatments that use classical and operant conditioning demonstrate some success in weight loss. Even after gastric bypass surgery, some patients will stop eating at the point of feeling nauseous because the amount of food they can take in is drastically reduced. Of course, there are cognitive, emotional, and motivational elements associated with overeating, and individual differences may lead some to overeat even though they feel sick.
      (5 votes)
  • blobby blue style avatar for user Ivy
    But why would you use rats, when we are so different from them. I know it's better than humans but, why rats?
    (4 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user susa5
    What exactly causes dopamine to be released? What's the mechanism/pathway for the production and release of dopamine?
    (3 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • duskpin sapling style avatar for user Nuhamin Regassa
    On why do scientists use rats for testing on types of drugs
    (1 vote)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user pbandegi
    this is the left hemisphere not right!
    (0 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • female robot grace style avatar for user Inger Hohler
      When talking about left and right in anatomy, you've got to picture the body part as your own. In this case you see the brain as if split down the middle, and the front of the face would be turned toward the left. You are seeing the right hemisphere "from the inside" of the brain.
      (7 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Colorado
    I remember reading about a drug that when taken causes alcohol to make a person sick, therefore decreasing the desire for alcohol but this seems to act counter to what was mentioned in the video, does this mean alcohol addiction works differently in the brain?
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • leafers seed style avatar for user allykettering1
    How does your brain know whether or not something is considered "rewarding"?
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user

Video transcript

- [Voiceover] Think about a time when you felt happy or particularly rewarded and this could be maybe somebody gave you a hug or you received some verbal praise or maybe you just ate a particularly excellent piece of cake. In any of these situations, your brain is responding in a similar way. Even though you had different stimuli, they all indicated that you were feeling rewarded. So what we're gonna talk about is the reward pathway in the brain. So this is your brain. Pretend you've sliced a brain in half and you're looking at the right hemisphere here. So here's your brain stem, prefrontal cortex, and the rest of it. So what I'm gonna focus on is a few specific parts of the brain and when you first experience pleasure, your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. So I'm just gonna write dopamine off to the side. So the dopamine is primarily produced in this area which is called the ventral tegmental area or VTA. The vental tegmental area is in the mid-brain and when it releases dopamine in the reward circuit it actually goes to a lot of different parts of the brain. So one of the places the VTA sends dopamine is to the amygdala so that's kind of in this area. The amygdala deals with emotions among other things. It also sends dopamine up to the nucleus accumbens which is around here and the nucleus accumbens controls your body's motor functions. So then we also send dopamine up to the prefrontal cortex which helps focus attention and planning. And the last area that we're gonna talk about where the VTA sends dopamine is the hippocampus which is kind of right around here. Just to note, that hippocampus dot should probably be a little closer to the amygdala, a little more to the left. The hippocampus is in the temporal lobe not the brain stem. We're just drawing it here so it's a little easier to separate out from the other parts that we're talking about. And the hippocampus is responsible for the formation of memories. So now we've set up all the parts of this pathway and what happens is that when you experience a stimulus and the dopamine in the VTA is released and travels along these pathways, it basically tells your body that this was good, let's do it again so this is your natural response to some pleasurable stimuli such as food, sex, social interactions, also certain drugs, particularly stimulants such as cocaine or amphetamines can initiate this response. And of course, different stimuli activate the circuit to different degrees and when we're talking about drugs, that's one reason that some drugs are easier to become dependent on than others. They activate the reward circuit to a greater degree than others. The nucleus accumbens, the amygdala, and the hippocampus are all part of something called the mesolimbic pathway and as a side note, try not to get too caught up in the terms. These terms like mesolimbic pathway, mesostriatal pathway, sometimes they're used in slightly different ways by different people and sometimes they're broken down into even more detail. Our purpose here is to hit the highlights, the really important parts of the reward pathway so I'm just gonna use some of the more common terms. The mesolimbic pathway is a big part of the reward circuit in the brain. So what happens is the VTA releases dopamine and it goes to all these different parts of the brain which have dopamine receptors so they uptake with dopamine and the result is a feeling of happiness or euphoria which is the reward you get. So for example, the amygdala, which helps process emotions and is connected to the hippocampus, will say, "This was a pleasurable sensation, "I enjoyed it," and then your hippocampus will say, "Well, let me remember everything "about this environment so we can do this again." For example, let's go back to that excellent piece of cake you might be eating. Your amygdala says, "This is delicious, "I love this, I'm feeling so happy right now," and your hippocampus says, "Well, let me "remember what restaurant I'm at, "what exact piece of cake I ordered, "who I'm with, let's remember things "about this experience." Then your nucleus accumbens, which helps control motor functions, says, "Well, let's take another bite. "Let me use my hand to use the fork "to get another piece and eat it." And your prefrontal cortex helps focus on that cake and divert some of your attention to it. And then you take another bite and it's delicious and the reward circuit goes crazy again and the dopamine goes out, and that's why you experience the sort of continued pleasure. And one interesting thing to note is that with the continued activation of this reward circuit, we talked about how dopamine goes up and at the same time a neurotransmitter called serotonin goes down and serotonin is partially responsible for feelings of satiation. So this is why drugs can be problematic when you continually activate this dopaminenergic circuit, this reward circuit. Your dopamine goes up so you have this increasing sense of euphoria but also serotonin levels can go down which means you're less likely to be satiated or content. What you might notice about this cycle is that it's a very biologically driven process. A long time ago, people used to think that drug addiction was completely driven by a failure or morals or willpower. And while people's choices are definitely strongly involved, we know now that addiction has physiological components as well. It's similar to looking at your family history to see if you might have a genetic predisposition for high blood pressure or something. If someone in your family has high blood pressure or has suffered from a drug addiction, then you may have some increased risk to develop the same condition. However, environment and your choices matter too so don't worry, nothing's set in stone. Some evidence for the biological basis of drug dependence actually comes from animal models. Scientists could hook rats up to IVs that give them cocaine if they push a lever and when they do this, rats learn very quickly to push that lever and they'll even engage in drug-seeking behaviors and will increase their dosage if they're allowed to. What's also really interesting is that negative consequences don't affect an addicted brain in the same way that they do a normal brain. For example, when you give a rat regular food that it likes paired with a substance that makes it sick, it learns to avoid that food. It doesn't like it anymore. But when you give an addicted rat its favorite drug paired with a substance that makes it sick, it still wants that drug. So whereas with the regular food it learns that "Oh, something bad happened when I ate this food, "I'm not going to do it anymore," with the drug it says, "Oh, something bad "happened when I took this drug, "but I don't really care, I really need that reward." And what those kinds of studies show us is that addiction seems to take over a rational mind. So what we'll talk about in the next video is tolerance or how you get accustomed to certain levels of reward and withdrawal so how you react when those pleasurable sensations are taken away from you.