ReviewTrends in neurosciences2019
What Is the Relationship between Dopamine and Effort?
Review in Trends in neurosciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 67 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
67 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dopamine D2-receptor blockade in humans disrupts the effect of effort on learning.PLoS biology · 2026Trial
- Effort, timing and choice: a refined rodent effort choice task with excellent sensitivity to dopamine modulators.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Mitofusin-2 in ventral striatal D1 neurons regulates effort-based motivation through sex-specific mitochondrial-synaptic reprogramming.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Neurochemical drivers of effort: The roles of dopamine and beyond in physical and cognitive exertion.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Understanding mechanisms of voluntary engagement of mental effort using active inference.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Rapid dopaminergic signatures in movement: Reach vigor reflects reward prediction error and learned expectation.Science advances · 2026Article
- Functional imaging of time on task and the involvement of dopaminergic and cholinergic substrates in cognitive effort and reward.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Midbrain Dopamine Warps Subjective Time via Threshold Setting But Not Clock Speed.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Reduced SK channel control of mesolimbic dopamine neuron firing drives reward seeking adaptations in chronic pain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Novel neurotherapeutic targets for substance use disorders: Neuroplasticity, neuroinflammation, gasotransmitters and non-canonical organ systems.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Review
- Dopaminergic and Noradrenergic Contributions to Divergent and Convergent Creativity Task Performance, a Systematic Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Rapid Dopaminergic Signatures in Movement: Reach Vigor Reflects Reward Prediction Error and Learned Expectation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Inhibition of striatal indirect pathway during second postnatal week leads to long-lasting deficits in motivated behavior.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Noradrenergic and Dopaminergic modulation of meta-cognition and meta-control.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Loss of effort in chronic low-back pain patients: Motivational anhedonia in chronic pain.PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
- G protein-coupled receptor modulation of striatal dopamine transmission: Implications for psychoactive drug effects.British journal of pharmacology · 2024Review
- Dopamine in Sports: A Narrative Review on the Genetic and Epigenetic Factors Shaping Personality and Athletic Performance.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- General mechanisms of task engagement in the primate frontal cortex.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Active reinforcement learning versus action bias and hysteresis: control with a mixture of experts and nonexperts.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
7 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The trade-off between reward and effort is at the heart of most behavioral theories, from ecology to economics. Compared to reward, however, effort remains poorly understood, both at the behavioral and neurophysiological levels. This is important because unwillingness to overcome effort to gain reward is a common feature of many neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. A recent surge in interest in the neurobiological basis of effort has led to seemingly conflicting results regarding the role of dopamine. We argue here that, upon closer examination, there is actually striking consensus across studies: dopamine primarily codes for future reward but is less sensitive to anticipated effort cost. This strong association between dopamine and the incentive effects of rewards places dopamine in a key position to promote reward-directed action.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.