Is Human Behavior Just Elaborate Running and Tumbling?

Here we present the reward-taxis model of human nature. It’s both a formal model and an intuitive explanation of many aspects of behavior. The model is based on recent work by Karin and Alon demonstrating the equivalence of the dopamine circuit in animals and the chemotaxis circuit in bacteria. The dopamine circuit performs what they call reward-taxis navigation. Here we extend that work, arguing that humans use reward-taxis in a fundamental way and that reward-taxis explains many psychological phenomena.