How Dopamine & Serotonin Shape Decisions, Motivation & Learning | Dr. Read Montague

If any goal that you achieved, whatever it is, taking a drug, eating a food, uh, getting a a partner or whatnot, um, if that was enough for you right then, you wouldn't keep living. You want that system to keep tracking, and once it gets to one place, you want it to have another place to which it could go. Otherwise, you wouldn't live. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

My guest today is Dr. Reid Montague. Dr. Reed Montague is the director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research at Virginia Tech. He is also an expert in the science of motivation, decision-making, and learning, and a pioneer in developing methods to directly measure levels of dopamine and other neuromodulators in humans in real time.

Today you'll learn how dopamine really works, not just to regulate your levels of motivation, we've all heard that before, but also to teach you things. Dopamine is involved in learning, as well as persistence or lack of persistence. As Reed will teach you, most of what we hear and know about dopamine is based on the idea that dopamine levels go up or down depending on our levels of expectations and then what happens. But as he explains, most aspects of life, work, school, relationships, our pursuit of money, etc., involve multiple milestones. We work, we wait, then we get an outcome that in turn informs the thing we do next.

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