A new study is challenging one of neuroscience’s most enduring ideas: that the brain’s reward system exists to make us feel good. Instead, researchers argue that it is built to optimize energy. Dopamine and opioids, long cast as the chemistry of pleasure, do not function as feel-good messengers but as physiological agents that optimize the body’s metabolic budget. In this view, motivation arises from rising physiological needs and reinforcement is the gain when those needs are resolved. The theory fundamentally reframes reinforcement learning. Rather than viewing reward as the pursuit of pleasurable outcomes, it proposes that learning is driven by metabolic optimization, or, the brain’s effort to minimize energetic costs and maximize gains. Within this framework, dopamine-and opioid-related processes such as habit formation, addiction, music and even social bonding are understood as expressions of a core biological principle: behaviors are reinforced when they improve the efficiency of the body’s energy regulation. In turn, dopamine-and opioid-related psychopathologies are reframed as conditions in which the brain’s energy-management system is no longer operating optimally.

New research co-led by Liu-Qin Yang, a professor of psychology at Portland State University (PSU), suggests that the true damage of a toxic boss goes far deeper than a bad mood — it fundamentally alters how employees perceive their own humanity. Published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, the study identifies “organizational dehumanization” as the primary mechanism that strips employees of their agency, leading to severe burnout and a collapse in workplace collaboration.

A clean energy future hinges on minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements. But the race to secure them puts pressure on the places where they are mined, often affecting communities contributing the least to climate change. To secure CRM sources, the United States and European Union are moving supply chains to aligned regions. But simply shuffling where minerals are mined does not automatically make extraction more ethical or sustainable. In a commentary published in Nature Energy, researchers propose a new framework of “just-shoring” to shift focus from competition and security to the rights and interests of those whose lands are most at risk.

According to the results, without the exceptionally high sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean, rainfall on the most extreme day of the episode could have been up to 40% lower. The study highlights the importance of high-resolution global simulations to better understand the impacts of climate change and improve preparedness for its social and economic effects.