The meaning of the word reward, “payment for something good that has been done,” is useful when considering the concept from an evolutionary perspective. It is widely believed that neurocircuitry has evolved to reward behaviors contributing to evolutionary fitness, motivating individuals to perform actions that increase the likelihood of propagating their genetic material. For a behavior to be rewarding (and thus be reinforced), it must create positive emotions, but it also must induce learning and produce consummatory behavior (i.e., eating, copulating, interacting). In fact, many neural systems formerly proposed to encode feelings of reward are now understood to be more complex. Therefore, the brain circuitry underlying reward must involve regions and connections that drive feelings of pleasure, formation and storage of memories, and decision-making and behavioral output. This chapter focuses on neurocircuits associated with these aspects of reward and their integration into a network responsible for reward processing.
An Evolutionary Perspective on the Importance of Community Relations for Quality of Life
