How Dopamine & Serotonin Shape Decisions, Motivation & Learning | Dr. Read Montague

If any goal that you achieved, whatever it is, taking a drug, eating a food, um, getting a, a partner or whatnot, um, if that was enough for you right then, you wouldn't keep living. You want that system to keep tracking, and once it gets to one place, you want it to have another place to which it could go, otherwise you wouldn't live. [upbeat music]

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Read Montague. Dr. Read Montague is the director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research at Virginia Tech. He is also an expert in the science of motivation, decision-making, and learning, and a pioneer in developing methods to directly measure levels of dopamine and other neuromodulators in humans in real time. Today, you'll learn how dopamine really works, not just to regulate your levels of motivation, we've all heard that before, but also to teach you things. Dopamine is involved in learning, as well as persistence or lack of persistence. As Read will teach you, most of what we hear and know about dopamine is based on the idea that dopamine levels go up or down, depending on our levels of expectations and then what happens. But as he explains, most aspects of life, work, school, relationships, our pursuit of money, et cetera, involve multiple milestones. We work, we wait, then we get an outcome that in turn informs the thing we do next. Or maybe dopamine arrives suddenly with no work involved at all. In other words, dopamine levels are constantly changing, and that shapes not just what you do now, but how you think about your recent past and what you will do next. So when we say dopamine is involved in learning, today you are going to realize that dopamine is teaching you how to adjust your behavior. We, of course, discuss how this knowledge can be leveraged for better motivation and decision-making, even better social interactions, and we also discuss serotonin and how dopamine and serotonin work in sort of seesaw fashion, and how serotonin, in particular, teaches you about unwanted outcomes. We also have a discussion about SSRIs that you're going to find fascinating. As Read points out, SSRIs increase levels of serotonin, but often that serotonin gets used at the dopamine synapses to reduce the rewarding properties of dopamine. So today's discussion about dopamine and serotonin is going to be vastly different than any that you've heard or read about elsewhere. You're going to learn how those neuromodulators work, and you're going to learn how they impact your everyday life and decision-making. As we all know, discussions about dopamine and serotonin are everywhere nowadays, but in today's episode, you're going to learn from a top expert in the field what these molecules truly do, and that's going to help you better leverage your efforts, introduce what we call deliberate delays, and how to use tools like AI to improve your levels of motivation and your ability to learn through neuroplasticity. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Read Montague. Dr. Read Montague, great to see you after all these fifteen years.