The "dopamine argument" is one of the most enduring claims in texts about the effects of games and gamification.
The popular idea simplifies the functions of dopamine in the organism, by presenting it as a "reward molecule". As scientists we are aware that this is a gross simplification. Yet it is a highly persistent claim, which we'd like to test in order to address the central claims in the popular discourse head on.
I am aware that the dopaminergic system can be monitored using e.g. PET, and I have found several references on the web about measuring it in blood samples, but are these viable ways of testing responses to e.g. game experiences?
The setup would be a factorial design or a RCT with game-elements as the 'treatment', and measures of game behavior plus subjectives experience as supportive DVs in addition to dopamine levels.
How could something like this be achieved? And is the idea realistic?
Short answer: With current technology, measuring real-time dopamine release in vivo in humans is not really possible.
Longer answer:
(1) To measure dopamine responses to particular stimuli, you need a tool that allows good temporal resolution, so PET is not viable. In rare cases, you can get data on dopamine release in people using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry during surgery on patients, but that is not generally available. See:
Kishida, K. T., Sandberg, S. G., Lohrenz, T., Comair, Y. G., Sáez, I., Phillips, P. E., & Montague, P. R. (2011). Sub-second dopamine detection in human striatum. PloS one, 6(8), e23291.
(2) Dopamine is not simply a “reward molecule”. A better, but still simplified, characterization is that dopamine encodes a reward prediction error—the difference between expected reward and received reward. See:
Glimcher, P. W. (2011). Understanding dopamine and reinforcement learning: the dopamine reward prediction error hypothesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 15647-15654.
This paper demonstrated increased dopamine release, related to better performance, in a video game:
Evidence for striatal dopamine release during a video game.
Koepp MJ, Gunn RN, Lawrence AD, Cunningham VJ, Dagher A, Jones T, Brooks DJ, Bench CJ, Grasby PM.
Nature. 1998 May 21;393(6682):266-8.
PMID: 9607763 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
The video game involved moving a ‘tank’ through a ‘battlefield’ on a screen using a mouse with the right hand. Subjects had to collect ‘flags’ with the tank while destroying ‘enemy tanks’.
in my opinion dopamine signals what is valuable (good, rewarding, novel, useful, meaningful, relevant, important, right),
to bias and motivate us to choose it, go for it, move for it, do something to gain it.
and also to get dependent on that what we value.
https://www.scienceopen.com/document/vid/13e62385-1fb0-4a49-9a5d-e435baa5b95e?0
Reward and adversity processing circuits: their competition and interactions with dopamine and serotonin signaling
I have recently heard of a group doing fast-scan cyclic voltammetry for sub-second dopamine detection in human patients. However, these patients are already undergoing surgery for deep brain stimulation. This clearly limits the population you would be working with.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0023291
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