Reward system

Have been doing some readings about Parkinson's Disease, which is the topic of my PBL presentation in this term. Came across a term about " Reward Pathway" and thus try to wikipedia it to have a glimpse what is it about. It is really interesting to know some trivia facts about how our brain works in the reward system.

"In neuroscience, the reward system is a collection of brain structures which attempts to regulate and control behavior by inducing pleasurable effects.


A psychological reward is a process that reinforces behavior — something that, when offered, causes a behavior to increase in intensity. Reward is an operational concept for describing the positive value an individual ascribes to an object, behavioral act or an internal physical state. Natural rewards include those that are necessary for the survival of species, such as eating, drinking, sex, and fighting. Rewards induce learning, approach behavior and feelings of positive emotions."


And most importantly,


"Rewards are generally considered more effective than punishment in enforcing positive behaviour.^[2] "


This sentence reminds me of what Ajahn Brahm said before which sounds like this, " Forgive yourself of whatever mistakes you did before and set yourself free. You don't learn from your mistakes! You learn most from what that can inspire you most. "


Perhaps that can be quite true! Now looking back our education system, the exam system tend to deduct marks and punish those who make mistakes. Consequently, we as students are really scared to make even a single bit of error, because we are scared of losing marks. It is said that this forms a kind of habit of being afraid and avoiding making mistakes and hence we become less and less creative in our way of thinking. We are somehow trained to do things that we are familiar with, excellently, and we are so afraid of trying new things, exploring unknown stuffs because we are fear of the unknown that increases the possibility of making errors! 


Anyway, I digress too much! I just found out that I lost quite some marks in my studies and I was in real grief about it. Now i am not inspired at all to be a better pharmacist from the mistakes i made. They should give me some rewards e.g. sweets, chocolate for realising my error instead of deducting my mark then. Hmph~ :P