Abstract:Educational neuroscience is a new interdisciplinary field and its aim is to link brain research with traditional education research. It enables educators to capture neural mechanism underlying diverse learning processes. Educational neuroscience can help educators to understand students' psychological processes in the learning context more comprehensively and to ultimately design an optimal learning environment. In this paper, the neural mechanism of motivation process is reviewed in terms of three sub processes, namely reward-driven stimulation process, competence and value based generating process, and goal directed cognitive control based maintenance process. Based on these three processes, several closely related concepts including reward, competence, value, goal, and cognitive control are discussed. Several key motivation-relevant brain structures are highlighted, such as ventral striatum, media prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The educational implication of exploring the neural mechanisms of motivation is also discussed.