A drop in dopamine below baseline, following a peak triggered by desire, motivates action to obtain the desired object or substance.

“if you can understand that you will understand why for instance when you initially want something or you think you want something it puts you into motion but then pretty quickly you're starting to feel the pain of not having that and that is also contributing to your desire to pursue that thing”

“then as I mentioned dopamine drops below Baseline that's further contributing to my desire to go pursue that sandwich either with my thumbs on my phone through the app or with my feet and walking to the deli”

“all of those cues are integrated and adjusting your Baseline level of dopamine all the time as you go to pursue that goal so what the dopamine system does is it doesn't just compare the height of the Peak at the beginning right the I desire that to the reward that you got we talked about reward prediction error that's the that's the kind of first grade version of reward prediction error it's also taking into account all the things that happen in between and all of that is serving as a cue for the eventual reward and all of that is funneling into what we call reward prediction error”

“very soon after I realized my desire for something that Peak that was caused by the desire comes down and drops below Baseline below the level of dopamine that it was prior to even thinking about the sandwich or the coffee or the glass of water and it's that drop below Baseline that triggers my desire to go out and find that sandwich that coffee that water or that blank insert whatever it is that you happen to desire action or substance of any kind or person Etc”