Affective neuroscience of pleasure: reward in humans and animals

Abstract

Pleasure and reward are generated by brain circuits that are largely shared between humans and other animals. Here, we survey some fundamental topics regarding pleasure mechanisms and explicitly compare humans and animals. 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. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]