Kent Berridge Affective Neuroscience & Biopsychology Lab



		We aim to improve understanding of neural mechanisms of emotion, motivation, learning and reward. Our topics include the psychology and neurobiology of sensory pleasure and desire, with implications for motivational disorders such as drug addiction. We also study how brains produce the detailed structure of natural behavior. Our research seeks answers to fundamental questions:








		How is pleasure generated in the brain? What are the neural bases of wanting and liking? How are rewards learned? How is learning transformed into incentive motivation? How do brain motivation systems work? What causes addiction? How does the brain distinguish pleasant from unpleasant? How does fear relate to desire? Can an emotion ever be truly unconscious? How are complex streams of real behavior produced by brains? What goes wrong in action disorders (Parkinson's, OCD, or Tourettes' )? Affective neuroscience & biopsychology of liking & wanting: Pleasure, desire, and reward learning In our affective neuroscience laboratory we study brain systems of sensory pleasure 'liking' (such as for sweetness) and of incentive salience 'wanting' (a type of desire). Our research has applications to human drug addiction, rational and irrational choices, and conscious and unconscious emotion involved in everyday pleasures and desires. Action syntax, executive brain systems, and neuroethology We study neural command systems that control sequential patterns of words, thoughts, and natural instinctive behaviors. All share brain striatal mechanisms of 'action syntax', a core function involved in normal behavior, OCD and related pattern pathologies of thought and action.