Identifying the brain's 'reward system'

According to this research published on the BBC site, scientists have determined an area of the brain which responds to rewards. Researchers used Magnetic Reasonce Tomography, to monitor brain activity when 2 subjects performed a test task simultaneously, and compared the activity to those who performed best against their test partner.

This is the latest piece of research from the Neuro-economics Lab at Bonn University, published in the latest issue of Science.

'Neuroscientist Dr Bernd Weber explains: "One area in particular, the ventral striatum, is the region where part of what we call the 'reward system' is located. In this area, we observed an activation when the player completed his task correctly."'

Not only this, but this area "lit up" greater when the subject received a bigger reward than their test partner.

'This indicated that stimulation of the reward centre was not merely linked to individual success, but to the success of others.'

Applying these conclusions to the field of motivation and incentives is difficult. But it is perhaps self-evident that a reward is truly motivating when everyone has an equal chance of receiving it, with the best performers receive more.