How does this work? There’s a tiny, ancient system in the brain whose mission is to keep updating your assessments of the world. This system is made of tiny groups of cells in your midbrain that speak in the language of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. When there’s a mismatch between your expectation and your reality, this midbrain dopamine system broadcasts a signal that re-evaluates the price point. This signal tells the rest of the system whether things turned out better than expected (an increased burst of dopamine) or worse (a decrease in dopamine). That prediction error signal allows
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