Dopamine has many roles, but for our purposes the most important thing to know is that, by activating pleasure-related receptors in our brains, it teaches us to associate certain behaviours with rewards (think of a rat that gets a pellet every time it presses a lever). Dopamine makes us feel excited – and we like feeling excited. Any experience that triggers the release of dopamine is therefore something that we’ll want to experience again. But that’s not all. If an experience consistently triggers the release of dopamine, our brains remember the cause and effect. Eventually, they will release
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