Brain-stimulation reward: a review.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review of animal and mechanistic literature on brain-stimulation reward.
PubMed 2044020 · doi:10.1037/h0084275
What was done
The author presented a narrative review synthesizing 36 years of research following Olds and Milner's (1954) discovery of septal self-stimulation in rats. The review traced methodological approaches used to localize self-stimulation substrates—including lesion studies, pharmacological manipulations, and neurophysiological characterizations—evaluated older experiments comparing brain-stimulation reward to natural rewards, and assessed how these findings inform theories of learning and motivation.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical findings or quantitative metrics. It notes that technological and methodological advancements outpaced conceptual integration regarding the underlying physiology of motivation and reinforcement.
Why it matters
This paper outlines the historical development of intracranial self-stimulation research and contextualizes how neurobiological reward circuitry can be incorporated into broader psychological models of motivation.
Limits
The abstract contains no quantitative data or specific study counts. As a narrative review focusing primarily on animal models prior to 1991, it lacks systematic search criteria and meta-analytic synthesis.
Cited by
- context A 1950s animal study by James Olds demonstrated that rats given the opportunity to self-administer intracranial brain stimulation would continue doing so to the point of starving to death or dehydrating while food pellets and water were readily available.