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| Scientists win 1m euro brain prize for understanding reward | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Three UK-based scientists have won a prestigious prize worth 1m euros for studying the brain's reward centre. | Three UK-based scientists have won a prestigious prize worth 1m euros for studying the brain's reward centre. |
| Their work helps understand our drive to shop, eat or even land on the moon. | |
| Reward is necessary for keeping us alive, but it can also spiral out of control leading to gambling and drug addiction. | Reward is necessary for keeping us alive, but it can also spiral out of control leading to gambling and drug addiction. |
| Wolfram Schultz, Peter Dayan and Ray Dolan said winning The Brain Prize - the biggest in the field of neuroscience - was a "great honour". | Wolfram Schultz, Peter Dayan and Ray Dolan said winning The Brain Prize - the biggest in the field of neuroscience - was a "great honour". |
| Prof Schultz is planning a holiday with the family, but his co-winners are still trying to figure out how to spend their prize money from Denmark's Lundbeck Foundation. | |
| Reward | |
| Our lives are spent constantly making decisions - should I eat in that restaurant, where should I go on holiday, should I apply for a new job, should I keep reading this story or move on? | |
| One of the winners, Prof Peter Dayan from UCL, told the BBC: "Reward is exactly how we optimise those choices." | |
| The trio's work over three decades has unravelled the critical role of the brain chemical dopamine. | |
| It triggers a set of brain cells to respond whenever there is a reward. And eventually the brain responds even in anticipation of the reward. | |
| "This makes us go for more reward and individuals that have more reward have a higher chance of survival," said Prof Wolfram Schulz, at the University of Cambridge. | |
| He added: "This is the biological process that makes us want to buy a bigger car or house, or be promoted at work." | |
| Expectation | |
| Prof Dayan said: "Animals of all different sorts have to be able to predict things that are going to be good or going to bad and choose actions in light of those predictions." | |
| But if things turn out better than expected then the reward system kicks in to drive us to repeat the same behaviour in the future. | |
| So if a restaurant turns out better than we thought, the dopamine response in the brain is stronger and that is why we are more likely to go there again. | |
| But as well as keeping us alive, the dopamine system can go horribly wrong. | |
| It is very obvious in people with Parkinson's diseases who are treated with drugs to boost dopamine. | |
| Prof Ray Dolan, from UCL, told the BBC: "It can often have very negative effects leading to excess gambling. | |
| "I've had patients when treated with these drugs have resorted to gambling, often secretive, and this has resulted in the tragedy of them losing their entire life savings." | |
| Other patients have suddenly developed compulsive shopping habits. | |
| Obesity is another example of a reward system that is now damaging health. | |
| Prof Sir Colin Blakemore, from the Brain Prize selection committee, said: "The implications of these discoveries are extremely wide-ranging, in fields as diverse as economics, social science, drug addiction and psychiatry". |