The brain regions tied to pleasure can be triggered by engaging in sex, eating tasty food, watching a movie, accomplishments at school and athletics, consuming drugs, and noble efforts to help the community, the country, and the world. It is noteworthy that research suggests that the latter type of satisfaction, supporting the community, may result in the most substantial positive effects on our immune system. However, these pathways for these effects are not understood. Berridge and Kringelbach have suggested that pleasure is mediated by well-developed mesocorticolimbic circuitry and serves adaptive functions. In affective disorders, anhedonia (lack of pleasure) or dysphoria (negative affect) can result from a breakdown of that hedonic system. Most importantly, human neuroimaging investigations indicate that surprisingly similar circuitry is activated by quite diverse pleasures, suggesting a common neural pathway shared by all rewarding stimuli and behaviors. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in pleasure/reward has led to confusion in terms, such as trying to separate motivation from pure pleasure (i.e., wanting versus liking). We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information that is described by self-reports in humans. On November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was revealed. A brain system involved in everything from addiction to autism appears to have evolved differently in humans than in apes, as reported by a large research team in the journal Science. To reiterate, the new findings by Sousa et al., also suggest the importance of not over-relying on rodent and even non-human primate studies. Extrapolations, when it comes to the concept of pleasure, dopamine, and reinforcement, are not supported by these data. Human experience and study are now much more critical and important. Extrapolations from non-humans to humans may be more fiction than fact. While this statement is bold it should not at all suggest that animal date is unimportant, that is not the case. It is extremely valuable in many aspects and we must encourage the development of animal models for disease. However, we must be cautious in our interpretation of results without leaping to conclusions that may be explained by follow-up human experiments and subsequent data. We are further proposing that in terms of overcoming a never -ending battle related to the current drug epidemic, the scientific community should realize that disturbing dopamine homeostasis by taking drugs or having a system compromised by genes or other epigenetic experiences, should be treated by alternative therapeutic modalities, expressed in this article as a realistic key goal. Application of genetic addiction risk (GARS™) testing and pro-dopamine regulation (KB220) should be considered along with other promising technologies including cognitive behavioral therapy, mind fullness, brain spotting and trauma therapy. Basic scientists have worked very hard to dis-entangle pleasure from incentive salience and learning signals in brain reward circuitry, but this work may be limited to animal models and rodents. A different consideration regarding the human reward systems is required.
Keywords: brain reward circuitry; comparative neuroanatomy; dopamine; hominids; pleasure; reward deficiency.