Cannabis users show no difference in motivation for rewards, pleasure from rewards, or the brain's response to reward-seeking than non-cannabis users.
Amotivation and anhedonia rather than expressive dysfunction play a critical role in determining social functioning in those with schizophrenia.
Survey study identifies four main techniques women feel enhance their sexual pleasure. Researchers say understanding the dynamics of pleasure and satisfaction experienced during sexual encounters is critical to good sexual health overall.
Study links anhedonia, or the loss of pleasure, to the early onset of frontotemporal dementia. Neuroimaging revealed symptoms of anhedonia were marked by atrophy in the frontal and striatal brain areas of those with FTD.
Do you experience the chills when you hear your favorite song? Researchers used EEG to map brain activity while people listened to their favorite tunes. Findings reveal specific brain areas work together to process music, triggering the reward system and increasing dopamine release.
Exposing subjects to music composed in an unfamiliar scale, researchers test whether reward can be derived solely from newly formed predictions.
Different classes of neurons in the ventral pallidum control positive and negative motivations, sending opposing signals along a shared motivation-processing circuit.
What we find pleasurable may be down to our genetics. Researchers found nucleus accumbens activation and physical anhedonia were influenced by shared genes. The experience of pleasure and physical anhedonia also appear to share some of the same genes.
Researchers shed light on the dual nature of dopamine, as a neurotransmitter that makes us seek pleasure and also reinforces avoidance of pain.
A new study reveals a brain region that contributes to anhedonia, the loss of pleasure, in those with depression. The study also shows how ketamine acts on this brain region, explaining why the drug appears to be so effective at treating anhedonia.
Analyzing the work of great philosophers and recent neuroscience research, researchers conclude certain simple features, such as symmetry and roundness, make things more attractive to us.
A new article looks at the neuroscience of pleasure and considers why, in the pursuit of pleasure, we embark in some actions which are detrimental to our well being.