No pain, no gain: Investigating the influence of punishments on reward learning

Most of us can relate to the unusually rewarding experience of a warm bath, especially immediately after enduring freezing temperatures. This rapid interplay between rewarding and punishing experiences, and how people learn from them, is critical for adaptive behaviour. Yet, despite extensive research on reward and punishment learning, their underlying dopaminergic mechanisms have mostly been studied separately, overlooking their potential interplay. This oversight is particularly relevant for addiction, where negative events seem to paradoxically amplify drug-seeking behaviour. To address this, I propose a novel framework to examine the neural mechanisms by which punishments enhance how people learn from rewards. I hypothesise that punishments amplify subsequent dopaminergic reward signals. Across five experiments, I will combine novel tasks with state-of-the-art methods. Neuroimaging and pharmacological manipulations establish the critical role of dopamine. Behavioural paradigms and computational modelling quantify the extent to which punishments dynamically influence reward learning, and how this relates with personality traits and addiction severity. Ambitious multimodal neuroimaging at ultra-high spatio-temporal resolution provides crucial neurobiological insights into how punishments amplify immediately subsequent reward signals. This bold research programme will transform our understanding of how people learn from rewards in combination with punishments, with vital implications for mental health and well-being.