Motivation and emotion/Book/2025/Pleasure anticipation and dopamine

Pleasure anticipation and dopamine:
How does the brain's reward system generate motivation through expected rather than experienced pleasure?

Overview

Figure 1. ...caption goes here... Imagine You wake up early one morning before your alarm goes off, tingling with excitement: you are going to a friend’s party tonight. Throughout the day, small reminders - a text from your friend, the sound of music, the memory of fun and laughter at their last party - keep your mood light and excited. Even before going to the party and having fun, your brain is already producing a reward. This is called anticipatory pleasure, and it has an essential role in deciding how we set goals, persist through challenges and hardships, and motivates us to invest and put effort into what matters to us. At the centre of this process is dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is often oversimplified as the “pleasure chemical”. Dopamine actually does more for prediction, motivation, and learning than it does hedonic enjoyment.

In this Chapter, we will explore (1) the neurobiology and the computational theories behind anticipatory reward and dopamine; (2) the difference between anticipation and experienced pleasure; (3) how disruptions in dopamine signalling contributes to mental health and behavioural issues; (4) how this knowledge can be applied into everyday life to help improve motivation, well-being, as well as goal attainment. Throughout, we use illustrative examples, a case study, and a quiz to anchor theory with lived experience.

Key points

1. Anticipatory pleasure is linked to dopamine, which is what signals the brain's reward pathways.
2. The hormone dopamine influences an individuals motivation by predicting the chance and value of rewards.
3. Understanding this process on a deeper level has significant implications for mental health and addictions.

Focus questions Which mechanisms allow dopamine to correctly support anticipation of future rewards? Biologically and psychologically, how is anticipatory and consummatory (experienced) pleasure different? What happens when the anticipatory dopamine signalling goes wrong? How can we use anticipatory pleasure to increase motivation and mental health?

Neurobiology and Theoretical Foundations of Pleasure Anticipation

Dopaminergic pathways and reward circuitry

In order to understand how anticipation works, we first need to understand the different components. Key components include. • Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) and the Substantia Nigra pars compacta (SNc) are the primary sources of dopamine neurons in the midbrain. • Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) (ventral striatum) is a core centre for reward and motivation, as well as integrating dopaminergic signals with contextual information. • Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), most especially the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and medial PFC, are involved in the evaluation of future outcomes, comparing the predicted value, and helping guide decision making.

These structures form networks that translate the cues we receive from sensory, contextual, and internal signals, into predictions, behavioural plans as well as motivational drive.

Computational models: Prediction error, temporal difference, incentive salience

Psychologists and neuroscientists have formalised how the brain does this through different computational frameworks. The major to know are as follows:

1. Reward Prediction Error (RPE)

Dopamine neurons encode the difference between what was expected, and the actual rewards: S=Rt + yV(St +1) - V(St)

In this, S is the prediction error, Rt is the reward received at time (t), Y is a discount factor, and V is the value estimate. When a cue reliably predicts a reward, the dopamine's response shifts from the reward itself to the cue.

1. Temporal Difference Learning (TD)

This model expands RPE by continuing to update its predictions over time. Presently, it is thought that dopamine implements a temporal difference error signal, which effectively pushes the brain to refine its predictions of future states (Gebauer et al., 2012).

1. Incentive Salience (Wanting vs liking)

Berridge and Robbinsion (1998) formulate that dopamine effects are related more to the motivational pull of cues (wanting) than the hedonic pleasure (liking). Dopamine attributes salience to reward-predicting stimuli, thus making these stimuli attention grabbing and motivating, even if the pleasure experienced is only modest. This helps to explain why sometimes people chase after things more than they actually enjoy them, loving the chase more than the prize (Wikipedia Contributors, 2024).

1. Uncertainty, volatility, and Bayesian predictive coding.

Recent models highlight how dopamine responds stronger to conditions of uncertainty and volatility. When an outcome is less predictable, the brain requires more focus in trying to predict the outcome, and as such, pays more attention by increasing its dopaminergic gain to help learn from cues. When in auditory and musical domains, Gebauer et al. (2012) argues that pleasure comes from an interplay of expectation and surprise, using dopamine to encode any miscommunication or deviation from what was expected (Gebauer et al., 2012). Combined, these create a multi-layer description of how the brain uses dopamine to turn cues into anticipatory motivation.

Empirical evidence: Dopamine and anticipatory desire

Some studies:

• Dopamine enhances hedonic expectation: In humans, it has been found that the experimental manipulation of dopamine through pharmacology, increases the subjective expectation of pleasure for any future event, and not just the hedonic enjoyment (Sharot et al., 2009).
• The role of D1 receptors: Genetic animal models that lack a D1 receptor demonstrate a diminished anticipatory behaviour and pleasure in expectation of reward, even when the consummatory (experienced) pleasure remains intact (Witt et al., 2024).
• Music as a natural experiment: Studies on musical pleasure demonstrate how neural responses in dopaminergic reward circuits occur prior to the peak of enjoyment, occurring during the build-up to the peak. It is Gebauer et al., (2012) who proposes a “pleasure cycle” that cycles between wanting and expectation to liking to learning.

This evidence confirms how dopiness rile is not just in reward consumption, but it also actively shapes the anticipation of the reward.

Anticipated vs. Experienced Pleasure: Distinctions and Interactions

Neurochemical and neural dissociations

• Neurotransmitters involved: Though dopamine is primarily central to the process of anticipation, the moment of “liking” (consummatory pleasure) also uses opioids, endocannabinoids as well as serotonin during the hedonic hotspots (e.g. nucleus accumbens shell).
• Timing and dynamics: Dopaminergic activity more often comes prior to the reward delivery (cue triggered bursts). The hedonic responses also tend to be slower; it maps into the rewards sensory and affective impact.
• Mismatched and predictive coding: If the outcome is not as expected, better or worse, then a prediction error signals to update future expectations. Continual or repeated mismatch of cues and signals can reduce the brains trust in cues, or it can lead to a negative emotional response.
• Adaption and hedonic treadmill: After time, the experience of experienced pleasure often becomes diminished (hedonic adaption), whereas anticipation continues to be a more stable motivtional force.

Behavioural and subjective evidence

• People have been seen to report more excitement prior to receiving a gift then they do feeling satisfaction after.
• An over reaction in aticipation can often lead to disappointment, while an underreaction of anticipation can lead to a pleasant surprise.
• It is well known in consumer psychology that the “expectation disconfirmation” is a phenomenon: stating how satisfaction depends on how the outcomes compares to the expectations.
• In some studies of depression, individuals have shown than there is often a diminished anticipatory pleasure (anticipatory anhedonia) more than there being a diminished consummatory pleasure.

Example: Musical Pleasure

In Gebauer et al. (2012) study, the listeners brains showed a dopaminergic activation during the build-up period to a musical climax. It was sometimes stronger than during the climax itself. This model demonstrates that expectation, prediction and surprise are all essential to musical enjoyment, not only passive listening (Gebauer et al., 2012).

Dysregulation and Dysfunction: What happens when dopamine misfires

Depression and anticipatory anhedonia

One of the hallmark features of clinical depression is anhedonia, a decreased ability t experience pleasure. Significantly, research suggests how anticipatory pleasure can be more diminished than consummatory pleasure. Individuals with depression more often lack motivation, they struggle to plan rewarding events and often demonstrate a blunted neural response to reward-predicting cues.

Neuroimaging studies have revealed how there is a reductied activation in striatal regions to cues in depressed versus healthy populations. Some pharmacological work supports this by suggesting that restoring dopaminergic tone may recover the anticipatory responsiveness.

Addiction and cue sensitisation

When looking at addiction, by nature, there is a unique relationship between want, and need. In addiction, cues that are associated with substance use, like the smell of a cigarette, or a bottle of alcohol, gain a pathological incentive salience, and they can become intensely motivating. From this, the dopaminergic system becomes “hijacked”, in a way that the craving and the ‘wanting’ essentially becomes disconnected from the actual ‘liking’. This is a key component of addiction: having strong – sometimes “irresistible” – cravings even when the reward itself is less pleasurable (Wikipedia Contributors, 2024b).

Parkinson’s disease and impulse control

Some treatments of Parkinson’s disease also boost dopamine (such as L-Dopa), to help motor symptoms, however in other patients, they can also amplify reward anticipation in excess, which then leads to impulsive behaviours such as gambling, hypersexuality or compulsive shopping. It is these side effects that illustrate the sensitive balance of dopamine: having too little undermines motivation, while too much can over-sensitise cues.

Other conditions: Schizophrenia, ADHD

New emerging evidence highlights how dysregulated predictive signalling, aberrant reward prediction errors, in schizophrenia, which then leads to a difficulty in distinguishing between salient vs non-salient events. In ADHD, an altered baseline in dopamine tone may dampen the anticipation of distant rewards, resulting in a preference for immediate gratification.

Figure 1. Caption goes here ...

Case study: Anticipation in Athletic Goal Pursuit

Case: Steve's 10K Challenge

Steve, who is a 35-year-old teacher, wants to go run a 10 km race. Steve plans this over 12 weeks. Instead of only focusing on finishing, Steve integrates anticipation into his training:

• Steve visualised crossing the finish line, hearing the crowd’s cheers, feeling proud if himself.
• Steve breaks up his training into smaller goal sets, first 5kms then 7kms, and Steve celebrates each of his milestones.
• Steve tracks his progress, he feels excitement on his faster days, and use cues, such as a new running route, or new running shoes, as his motivators.

But what happens to Steve behaviourally?

• The cues Steve has self-imposed, the shoes and new tracks, become reward predictors for Stave, which then triggers dopamine and continues to motivate him before he starts running.
• On the more difficult days, Steve relies on the anticipated reward, completion and recognition, which helps Steve to push through discomfort.
• This mismatch between Steve’s expectations and reality, a slower run than expected, causes Steve to adjust his training plan, effectively updating his predictions.

This case study illustrates how the strategic use of anticipation can help to sustain motivation, most particularly when a reward is delayed or requires more effort.

Table Comparison of Anticipation vs Experience

Dimension	Anticipatory Pleasure ("Wanting")	Consummatory/Experience Pleasure ("Liking")
Neurochemical dominance	Dopamine (phasic bursts)	Opioids, endocannabinoids, dopamine (less phasic)
Timing	Pre-reward, cue-based	During or immediately after reward
Function	Motivation, planning, prediction	Hedonic impact, emotional enjoyment
Behavioral phenomena	Craving, expectation, cue-driven behavior	Satiety, adaptation, hedonic response

Applications: Using Anticipatory Pleasure in Everyday Life

Goal setting and planning

Make things easier for yourself by breaking your big goals into smaller ones. Each of these smaller goals acts as a cue activating a reward cycle. This allows multiple anticipatory phases rather than one large distant reward. This can help to sustain motivation over a long period of time.

Visualisation and mental rehearsal

Imagining a future reward can create vivid scenarios that can evoke anticipatory dopamine responses that reinforce interest and drive in both the reward, and activity to get there. Athletes, performers and students often use mental rehearsal to help sustain their motivation.

Cue design and environment

The intentional placement of cues, such as visual reminders, progress trackers, or reminders, can be triggers for anticipatory motivation. For example, putting your joggers by the door can trigger excitement before going for a run.

Managing expectations

It is also important to be aware of over-expectations: calibration helps. By practicing gratitude and recognising that the actual end outcome may be different to your expectations, as well as reframing any disappointments can help to reduce the emotional “gap” between the anticipated and the experienced.

Therapeutic use in depression and addiction

• In behavioural activation therapies, therapists encourage scheduling to have pleasurable or meaningful activities to help rebuild anticipatory pleasure.
• Similarly, in cognitive reframing patients are helped in forming a realistic and positive expectation, which can help to reset and restore their anticipatory drive.
• In addiction therapy treatment, cue-based exposure therapy can help to reduce the salience of addiction-related cues, weakening the pathological anticipatory responses.

Critiques, Limitations and Ongoing Questions

Oversimplification of dopamine

The too common notion of “dopamine = pleasure” is vastly outdated and now acutely inaccurate. Dopamine is far more related to prediction, motivation and learning. The hedonic experience of pleasure if mediated by other systems (Berridge & Robinson, 1998).

Heterogeneity of dopamine neurons

Not all dopamine neurons function in the same capacity, or work towards the same goal. Some neurons respond to aversive cues, while others respond to saliency, and some respond to reward. The diversity is still being mapped.

Methodological Challenges

The temporal resolution (fMRI, PET) is greatly limited. Distinguishing between anticipatory and consummatory signals is complicated. Subjective reports may often misalign with brain data.

Individual differences

Individual differences such as genetics, early life experiences, personality and culture can all influence how strongly someone may anticipate a reward. As such, some people may be more “dopamine sensitive”.

Unsolved questions

1. Are we able to reliably measure individual differences in dopamine in daily life?
2. What is the best way to “retrain” anticipatory systems in depression or addiction?
3. How can dopamine interactions with serotonin, glutamate, GABA remodel anticipation under stress, age or disease?

Conclusion

Anticipatory pleasure, when mediated by dopamine, can be a powerful force driving human motivation. Instead of simply responding to rewards, our brain works forward – predicting, modelling, pushing us towards what we expect to be valuable. This ability allows us to endure greater challenges, schedule activities, and aspire to reach future goals. When this system is damaged or impaired, by depression, addiction or other disorders, motivation can collapse, cravings run wild, or behaviour can become skewed.

In everyday life, the takeaway is clear. Cultivate cues, and your expectations deliberately. Make sure you visualise your future, break your large goals into small steps, design the environments you surround yourself in to be rich in motivating signals, and ensure you calibrate your expectations mindfully. If you do, you can harness dopamine not just as a reaction reflex, but as a driving force for your growth, persistence, and personal well-being.

See also

Reward system to further understand the main reward system

Motivation and Emotionto further understand human motivation and emotion.

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, February 25). Reward system. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system

Motivation and emotion/Book/2013/Nicotine and emotion - Wikiversity. (2022). Wikiversity.org. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation_and_emotion/Book/2013/Nicotine_and_emotion

References

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Brenes, J. C., & Schwarting, R. K. W. (2015). Individual differences in anticipatory activity to food rewards predict cue-induced appetitive 50-kHz calls in rats. Physiology & Behavior, 149, 107–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.05.012

Bromberg-Martin, E. S., Matsumoto, M., & Hikosaka, O. (2010). Dopamine in motivational control: Rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron, 68(5), 815–834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.022

Gebauer, L., Kringelbach, M. L., & Vuust, P. (2012). Ever-changing cycles of musical pleasure: The role of dopamine and anticipation. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 22(2), 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031126

Moura, P. D. F. T. (2020, April 2). Dopamine: More Than Pleasure, The Secret is the Anticipation of a Reward. LiveInnovation.org. https://liveinnovation.org/dopamine-more-than-pleasure-the-secret-is-the-anticipation-of-a-reward/National Institute on

Drug Abuse. (2022). National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). National Institute on Drug Abuse. https://nida.nih.gov/

Schultz, W. (2015). Neuronal Reward and Decision Signals: From Theories to Data. Physiological Reviews, 95(3), 853–951. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00023.2014

Sharot, T., Shiner, T., Brown, A. C., Fan, J., & Dolan, R. J. (2009). Dopamine Enhances Expectation of Pleasure in Humans. Current Biology, 19(24), 2077–2080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.10.025

Tamura, T., Sugihara, G., Okita, K., Mukai, Y., Matsuda, H., Shiwaku, H., Takagi, S., Daisaki, H., Tateishi, U., & Takahashi, H. (2022). Dopamine dysfunction in depression: application of texture analysis to dopamine transporter single-photon emission computed tomography imaging. Translational Psychiatry, 12(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-022-02080-z

Treadway, M. T., & Zald, D. H. (2011). Reconsidering anhedonia in depression: lessons from translational neuroscience. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(3), 537–555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.06.006

Wikipedia Contributors. (2024a, September 2). Kent C. Berridge. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_C._BerridgeWikipedia Contributors. (2024b, September 2). Kent C. Berridge. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Kent_C._BerridgeWitt, K. M., Harper, D. N., & Ellenbroek, B. A. (2024). The role of the dopamine D1 receptor in anticipatory pleasure and social play. Neuropharmacology, 264, 110225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2024.110225

External links

Neuroscience 2025. (2019). Sfn.org. https://www.sfn.org/

Top Parkinson’s Science News Articles of 2024. (2024, December 10). Parkinson’s Foundation. https://www.parkinson.org/blog/science-news/2024-top-science-news