stimulants and reward-seeking

[Abider]

What does he think about stimulants and reward-seeking behaviour ?
Is there an connection ?

[Gradient]

Abider,

Yes, there is a very direct connection - good thinking there! If you're interested in reading into this dynamic, check out dopamine, mesolimbic dopamine system, nucleus accumbens, and substantia nigra. Dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter that stimulants enhance, while each of the other terms refer to parts of the brain that are central to the reward, or reinforcement, of certain behaviors.

[joeyadamski]

Most stimulants also agonize norepinephrine, which causes the stimulation and excitement that many users crave. I think it's both the dopamine buzz and the adrenaline-like energy boost that stimulant users crave.

[staples]

Yes, there is a connection. Check out The Evolutionary Origins and Significance of Drug Addiction from the file archive. Particularly, section 5, which starts with the following:

5. Physiology of addiction and reward
Mammalian brains work heavily on a motivational system with two types of motivation: like and want [11]. Like is controlled by opiod and brain stem systems, and refers to pleasure upon receiving a reward, whereas want (salience), mediated by the cortico-mesolimbic dopaminergic system, is an anticipatory motivation to pursue reward. We receive "pleasure" through intracellular signaling of adaptive chemical pathways of a reward system that bring our attention to what we need. The nucleus accumbens (NAcb) and globus pallidus are involved in reward pathways for alcohol, opiates, and cocaine [18]. NTs involved in these pathways are dopamine (primarily within the NAcb and hippocampus), serotonin (hypothalamus), enkephalins (ventral tegmental area and NAcb), GABA (inhibitory - ventral tagmental area and NAcb), and norepinephrine (hippocampus). When there is a disturbance within the reward intracellular cascade, a chemical imbalance occurs that triggers negative emotions to be indicative of the disturbance. This is referred to as "reward deficiency syndrome," where the chemical imbalances within the intracellular cascade manifest themselves as behavioral disorders, indicating a deficiency within adaptive reward pathways. Drug addiction may initially cause and then further proceed to exacerbate "reward deficiency syndrome."
...

It's not specifically about stimulants, but you may keep in mind that typically stimulants bind to and block the reuptake transporter protein for dopamine and, to a lesser extent, norepinephrine receptor sites, and sometimes (in the case of amphetamines) also mimic the neurotransmitter by activating post-synaptic receptors. The article does however discuss how such effects are related to the behaviors associated with drug addiction (e.g, reward-seeking behavior), plus it is an excellent article in any respect.