Dopamine, reward prediction error, and economics

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Caplin, Andrew; Dean, Mark
• 署名单位: City University of New York (CUNY) System
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/qjec.2008.123.2.663
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 663-701
• 关键词: PEOPLE PLAY GAMES; CONJOINT-MEASUREMENT; nucleus-accumbens; responses; midbrain; neurons; addiction; substrate; dorsal; models

摘要

The neurotransmitter dopamine has been found to play a crucial role in choice, learning, and belief formation. The best-developed current theory of dopaminergic function is the reward prediction error hypothesis-that dopamine encodes the difference between the experienced and predicted reward of an event. We provide axiomatic foundations for this hypothesis to help bridge the current conceptual gap between neuroscience and economics. Continued research in this area of overlap between social and natural science promises to overhaul our understanding of how beliefs and preferences are formed, how they evolve, and how they play out in the act of choice.