NOvelty-related Motivation of Anticipation and exploration by Dopamine (NOMAD): Implications for healthy aging
Abstract
Studies in humans and animals show that dopaminergic neuromodulation originating from the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA) of the midbrain enhances hippocampal synaptic plasticity for novel events and has a motivationally energizing effect on actions through striatal mechanisms. In this review, we discuss how these mechanisms of dopaminergic neuromodulation connect to the behavioural and functional consequences that age-related structural degeneration of the SN/VTA exerts on declarative memory. We propose a framework called 'NOvelty-related Motivation of Anticipation and exploration by Dopamine' (NOMAD) which captures existing links between novelty, dopamine, long-term memory, plasticity, energization and their relation to aging. We propose that maximizing the use of this mechanism by maintaining mobility and exploration of novel environments could be a potential mechanism to slow age-related decline of memory.
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These triggers and states include novelty and other violations of expectations, active video game play, stress, and risk.
“These triggers and states include novelty and other violations of expectations (Costa, Tran, Turchi, & Averbeck, 2014;Duzel, Bunzeck, Guitart-Masip, & Duzel, 2010;Murty & Adcock, 2014), active video game play (Koepp et al., 1998), stress (Lighthall, Gorlik, Schoeke, Frank, & Mather, 2013), and risk (Schultz, 2010).”
From Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning (2016) · cites this paper as Duzel et al., 2010
Novelty acts as an intrinsic reward for actions and states that had not been recently explored or that produce high empirical prediction errors.
“This is consistent with the theoretical notion that novelty acts as an intrinsic reward for actions and states that had not been recently explored or that produce high empirical prediction errors”
From Information-seeking, curiosity, and attention: computational and neural mechanisms (2013) · cites this paper as Duzel, Bunzeck et al. 2010
Human SN/VTA activation can also occur due to aversive events and novel stimuli.
“Other work using fMRI has demonstrated that activation can also occur due to aversive events [53] as well as novel stimuli [54].”
From A neoHebbian framework for episodic memory; role of dopamine-dependent late LTP (2011) · cites this paper as [54]
In aging, there is converging evidence from human imaging studies for structural degeneration of the VTA/SN.
“In aging, there is now converging evidence from human imaging studies for a structural degeneration of the VTA/SN (for reviews, see [54, 81]).”
From A neoHebbian framework for episodic memory; role of dopamine-dependent late LTP (2011) · cites this paper as [54]
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References 109 · Cited by 249
- Authors
- Düzel, E., Bunzeck, N., Guitart-Masip, M., & Düzel, S.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Düzel, Emrah
- Venue
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-04
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 660-669
- ISSN
- 0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1993409702
- Cited by
- 249
- References
- 109
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 0.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- DZNE Pub (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (81259)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Parkinson's Disease Mechanisms and Treatments
- Keywords
- dopamine, substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area, dopaminergic modulation, novelty, hippocampal synaptic plasticity, anticipation, exploration, memory aging, age-related memory decline, long-term memory, mobility (physical function)
- MeSH terms
- Aging, Animals, Brain, Dopamine, Exploratory Behavior, Humans, Models, Neurological, Motivation
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