Dopamine, the Thermometer and Thermostat of Value
A 2017 article in Scientific American Mind by Maia Szalavitz proposes that associating pleasure with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which plays an essential role in movement and motivation, may be a misunderstanding. Instead, neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz, MD, of the University of Cambridge sees dopamine serving as a standard currency system for desire.
I don’t see dopaminergic neurons acting as a currency of desire because that implies a standard unit of measurement. However, we know the only way our feelings or that which we value is evaluated is via subjective self-report. I hypothesize that for different neural circuits, dopamine acts as a thermometer or indicator of value for the reward prediction error theory and as a thermostat or modulator of value regarding the incentive salience theory.
Values are that what you act to gain or keep and are the motivating power of your thoughts, choices, actions, and a necessity for your survival, psychologically and physically.
Just as a thermometer measures temperature from a state of hot to cold, and its currency is degrees, so your affective systems measure morality from good to evil. Your feelings, in a sense, are decision-making algorithms that evolved to guide behavior toward what was historically most likely to promote survival and reproduction. Thus, your feelings (the simple perceptions…
