Brain's reward system earns researchers €1 million prize

Unpicking the secrets of the brain's reward system has earned three neuroscientists a reward of their own. Wolfram Schultz, Peter Dayan, and Ray Dolan have today been awarded the €1 million Brain Prize by Denmark's Lundbeck Foundation. The prize recognises researchers who have made vital contributions to understanding how our brains work. Together, their research has revealed how reward systems in the brain that involve the signalling chemical dopamine influence our behaviour and survival, playing important roles in decision-making, gambling, drug addiction, psychopathic tendencies, and schizophrenia. "This is the biological process that makes us want to buy a bigger car or house, or be promoted at work," says Wolfram Schultz, at the University of Cambridge.