Behavioral Neuroscience Of Motivation

This volume covers the current status of research in the neurobiology of motivated behaviors in humans and other animals in healthy condition. This includes consideration of the psychological processes that drive motivated behavior and the anatomical, electrophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms which drive these processes and regulate behavioural output. The volume also includes chapters on pathological disturbances in motivation including apathy, or motivational deficit as well as addictions, the pathological misdirection of motivated behavior. As with the chapters on healthy motivational processes, the chapters on disease provide a comprehensive up to date review of the neurobiological abnormalities that underlie motivation, as determined by studies of patient populations as well as animal models of disease. The book closes with a section on recent developments in treatments for motivational disorders.

This book was conceived many years ago as an abstract goal for a father-son team when the father was working in university administration and the son was just getting into the academic business. Eventually, the father returned to the laboratory, the son began to get his feet on the ground, and the goal became concrete. Now the work is finished, and our book enters the literature as, we hope, a valuable contribution to understanding the terribly complex and subtle problem of the neuro biology of motivated behaviors. We would also like the book to stand as a personal mark of a cooperative relationship between father and son. This special relationship between the authors gave us an extra dimension of pleasure in writing the book, and it would delight us if it gave anyone else an extra dimension of enjoyment from reading it. One thing we hope happens is that anyone or simply considering entering similar considering a similar partnership, of this book as encouragement. Such re fields, will take the existence lationships are highly satisfying if both parties take care to protect the partnership. When we actually sat down to write the book, we were humbled by the immense literature and the smallness of both our conceived space for putting it down and of our brains for processing all the information.

Motivation addresses a central problem in psychology: Why does an animal's behavior fluctuate in the face of an unaltered environment? In a sense this is the opposite of the question from which work on motivation began, and for which Claude Bernard invented the concept of the fixity of the internal milieu: How does an animal maintain constancy in the face of a fluctuating environment? Dealing with motivation has become extremely complex as new experiments, phenomena, and theories have extended the concept. This book embodies some of the ways in which work on motivation is currently proceeding. One of the major changes has been the recognition that motivation cannot be explained without an understanding of the biological rhythms and activational systems that underlie behavior. Another is that ecological and evolutionary perspectives add enormously to answering the central problem of why an animal does what it does when it does. The book suffers from several omissions. There is no chapter on the devel opment of motivated behavior. There is none on reward systems in the brain, owing to the untimely death of James Olds, whose contribution would have enriched this book appreciably, and to whom we dedicate it. EVELYN SATINOFF PHILIP TEITELBAUM Vll Contents PART I UNDERLYING ACTIVATIONAL SYSTEMS CHAPTER 1 Motivation, Biological Clocks, and Temporal Organization of Behavior 3 Irving Zucker Reactivity to External Stimuli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Reactivity to Interoceptive Stimuli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Sources of Biological Rhythmicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Rhythm Generation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . Rhythm Synchronization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 . . . . . . . . . . Consequences of Rhythm Desynchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . .

Behavioral Neuroscience: Essentials and Beyond shows students the basics of biological psychology using a modern and research-based perspective. With fresh coverage of applied topics and complex phenomena, including social neuroscience and consciousness, author Stéphane Gaskin delivers the most current research and developments surrounding the brain′s functions through student-centered pedagogy. Carefully crafted features introduce students to challenging biological and neuroscience-based concepts through illustrations of real-life application, exploring myths and misconceptions, and addressing students′ assumptions head on.

To scientists engaged in research on the cellular mechanisms in the mammalian brain, concepts of "motivation" seem to be a logical neces sity, even if they are not fashionable. Immersed in the detailed, time consuming research required to deal with mammalian nerve cells, we usually pay scant attention to the more global brain -behavior questions that have arisen from decades of biological and psychological studies. We felt it was time to confront these issues-namely, how far has neuro biological investigation come in uncovering mechanisms by which moti vational signals influence behavior? At Rockefeller University, we have recently held a course on this subject. We restricted our treatment to those motivational systems most tractable to physiological approaches, and invited scientists skilled in both behavioral issues and physiological techniques to participate. This volume results from that course. The deans and administration at Rockefeller University provided much help in planning the course, and the staff of Springer-Verlag assisted in planning the book. Gabriele Zummer helped organize both the course and the processing of book chapters. They all deserve our thanks. December 1981 Donald W. Pfaff Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior Rockefeller University Contents Part One: Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1 Donald W. Pfaff Motivational Concepts: Definitions and Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . 3 Motivation: A Brief Review of Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Reinforcement, Reward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Incentive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Motivation Is a Unitary Behavioral Concept with Multiple Neurophysiological Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Chapter 2 Alan N.

Motivation is that which moves us to action. Human motivation is thus a complex issue, as people are moved to action by both their evolved natures and by myriad familial, social and cultural influences. The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation collects the top theorists and researchers of human motivation into a single volume, capturing the current state-of-the-art in this fast developing field. The book includes theoretical overviews from some of the best-known thinkers in this area, including chapters on Social Learning Theory, Control Theory, Self-determination theory, Terror Management theory, and the Promotion and Prevention perspective. Topical chapters appear on phenomena such as ego-depletion, flow, curiosity, implicit motives, and personal interests. A section specifically highlights goal research, including chapters on goal regulation, achievement goals, the dynamics of choice, unconscious goals and process versus outcome focus. Still other chapters focus on evolutionary and biological underpinnings of motivation, including chapters on cardiovascular dynamics, mood, and neuropsychology. Finally, chapters bring motivation down to earth in reviewing its impact within relationships, and in applied areas such as psychotherapy, work, education, sport, and physical activity. By providing reviews of the most advanced work by the very best scholars in this field, The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation represents an invaluable resource for both researchers and practitioners, as well as any student of human nature.

Of the many conceptual distinctions present in psychology today, the approach-avoidance distinction stands out as one of, if not the, most fundamental and basic. The distinction between approach and avoidance motivation has a venerable history, not only within but beyond scientific psychology, and the deep utility of this distinction is clearly evident across theoretical traditions, disciplines, and content areas. This volume is designed to illustrate and highlight the central importance of this distinction, to serve as a one-stop resource for scholars working in this area, and to facilitate integration among researchers and theorists with an explicit or implicit interest in approach and avoidance motivation. The main body of this volume is organized according to seven broad sections that represent core areas of interest in the study of approach and avoidance motivation, including neurophysiology and neurobiology, and evaluative processes. Each section contains a minimum of four chapters that cover a specific aspect of approach and avoidance motivation. The broad applicability of the approach-avoidance distinction makes this Handbook an essential resource for researchers, theorists, and students of social psychology and related disciplines.

In Effort: A Behavioral Neuroscience Perspective on the Will, author Jay Schulkin presents a two-fold thesis: there is no absolute separation of the cognitive and non-cognitive brain, and there are diverse cognitive systems, many of which are embodied in motor systems that underlie self-regulation. Central to this thesis is that dopamine is the one neurotransmitter that underlies the diverse senses of effort, and is apparent in most everyday activity, whether solving a problem in our head or moving about. As scientific literature abounds with studies of decision-making and effort, this book emphasizes the importance of demythologizing our understanding of cognitive systems in order to link motivation, behavioral inhibition, self-regulation, and will. Effort will benefit researchers and students in neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, social psychology, as well as anyone with interest in this topic.