Winter 2007
Psychology 831 (section 3)
Special topic in physiological psychology
Affective Neuroscience of Reward:
Pleasure & DesireProf. Kent Berridge
(berridge@umich.edu)This seminar will focus on brain mechanisms and psychological processes involved in mediating pleasure and desire for various hedonic rewards. It is open to interested graduate students in Psychology, Neuroscience or related disciplines. Advanced undergraduates by permission only. Others are welcome to sit in by arrangement.
Topics include:
- Which brain systems generate pleasure?
- Psychological processes of reward learning, liking, and wanting
- What is the role of dopamine in reward?
- Roles of subcortical versus cortical brain structures in generating reward
- Conscious versus unconscious psychological processes in reward
- What causes addiction?
- Brain stimulation reward: what is it exactly?
- The problem of what to want: how do limbic mechanisms choose particular targets
- Changing rewards: Integration of mesolimbic reward systems with hypothalamic regulatory systems
- Historical roots of current reward concepts
- Limbic system organization: neuroanatomy old and new
Time: Thursday 1 - 3 pm --- Place: East Hall 4437
3 Credits
