Which aspects of a stimulus drive the DA system (novelty, reward, salience)?

Our initial conclusion was "novelty and salience"; then we realized that reward is often perceived as a novel stimulus, so our final conclusion was that DA is driven by all three: novelty, reward, and salience. Our discussion started off in a way that was very similar to the first few paragraph of the recent Kelley & Berridge review in JNS (2002). Does DA mediate reward, pleasure, salience, learning or, approach; does it increase signal/noise, does it "prepare" the brain to receive a stimulus?

We found little direct evidence for any of these hypotheses. But we also found little direct evidence against them. A typical example concerned the hypothesis regarding signal/noise ratio; we realized that although there is no strong evidence for DA increasing this ratio, there is also no evidence contradicting it.

We questioned whether a change in DA levels, DA release, or DA cell activity mediates the effects of DA and we questioned the "location" of DA action (PFC, NAc, Striatum). Concerning ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.