In an article published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology and University of Tokyo, Japan found that problems with motivation and the formation of delusional beliefs may both be linked to a single underlying problem: when an overactivated cortex disrupts the brain’s ability to link actions and consequences.
Arvind Kumar, associate professor in computational neuroscience at KTH, says the study offers a computational neuroscience model that attempts to unify several known roles of the brain’s dopamine system: learning from rewards, controlling motivation and building an internal picture of what’s going on.
A unified explanation would make it easier to study how these symptoms develop together and may guide future research into treatments, says lead author Kenji Morita, associate professor at University of Tokyo. “If the suggested root cause is validated, then mechanistically grounded therapies could be developed,” Morita says.
