In other words, once reward contingencies are learned, dopamine is less about...

In other words, once reward contingencies are learned, dopamine is less about reward than about its anticipation. Similarly, work by my Stanford colleague Brian Knutson has shown dopamine pathway activation in people in anticipation of a monetary reward.91 Dopamine is about mastery and expectation and confidence. It's "I know how things work; this is going to be great." In other words, the pleasure is in the anticipation of reward, and the reward itself is nearly an afterthought {unless, of course, the reward fails to arrive, in which case it's the most important thing in the world}. If you know your appetite will be sated, pleasure is more about the appetite than about the sating.fn48 This is hugely important.

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