Brain Stimulation Reinforcement
Early studies on the motivational effects of brain stimulation addressed two primary questions: Which brain sites produce a rewarding effect when stimulated? and What drugs influence the response to stimulation and how? Investigation of the brain reward circuitry reveals that it consists of a distributed, multisynaptic circuit that determines both BSR and natural reward function. The natural drives that motivate and shape behavior reach the reward circuitry trans-synaptically through the peripheral senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, or touch. However, the laboratory induced rewards of intracranial electrical stimulation or drug injections directly activate the reward circuitry and bypass the peripheral sensory pathways. For this reason, electrical brain stimulation and drug injections provide a tool for identifying the reward circuitry within the central nervous system with some degree of anatomical and neurochemical specificity. Studies involving these two forms of laboratory reward showed stimulation of a broad range of limbic and diencephalic structures could be rewarding as well as implicated the dopamine-containing neurons of the mesolimbic dopamine system in motivational function. The motivational effect of intracranial self-stimulation varies substantially depending on the placement site of the surgically implanted electrode during electrical stimulation, and animals will work to stimulate different neural sites depending on their current state. Oftentimes, animals that work to initiate brain stimulation will also work to terminate the stimulation.
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