Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Affective neuroscience of pleasure: reward in humans and animals
Kent C Berridge1, Morten L Kringelbach
1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. berridge@umich.edu
Introduction:
Pleasure and reward are generated by brain circuits that are largely shared between humans and other animals.
Discussion:
Here, we survey some fundamental topics regarding pleasure mechanisms and explicitly compare humans and animals.
Conclusion:
Topics surveyed include liking, wanting, and learning components of reward; brain coding versus brain causing of reward; subjective pleasure versus objective hedonic reactions; roles of orbitofrontal cortex and related cortex regions; subcortical hedonic hotspots for pleasure generation; reappraisals of dopamine and pleasure-electrode controversies; and the relation of pleasure to happiness.
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