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What brain chemical(s) is attributed to the deep satisfaction of achieving an important, meaningful or long-term goal?

My understanding is that the shallow satisfaction of achieving an unimportant or short-term goal, such as

  • Getting a handful of likes on social media
  • Completing a mission in a video game
  • Correctly answering a question in a classroom

is mostly attributed to dopamine.

Do larger-scale successes, such as

  • Breaking a world record after $1000$ hours of unsuccessful attempts
  • Winning a large chess tournament
  • Learning a new skill

correspond to a different chemical or set of chemicals?

Glorfindel
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1 Answers1

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Serotonin and Dopamine

Serotonin contributes to satisfaction [0], and tends to have more background-level effects (so something that would be present while working on your project as well as after) than dopamine, while dopamine is associated with accomplishment in general [1], big or small (it's the "reward mechanism").

The most significant increase at the moment of accomplishment would be in dopamine, but serotonin would also increase.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449495/

[1] https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01589-6

belkarx
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