Morten L. Kringelbach is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford and a Professor at Aarhus University Denmark. A seasoned neuroscientist, he offers an accessible survey of the connection between the brain and pleasure, the emotions, and the mysteries of human happiness. During the 1950s, researchers discovered the pleasure center of the brain and were fascinated by the functions of dopamine which the author describes as "one of the main chemicals aiding neural signaling in these regions."
Kringelbach makes the interesting observation that pleasure slips and slides around when we try to pin it down. The dopamine system seems to prefer desire over pleasure and "wanting" over "liking." In other chapters, the author provides more fascinating ideas, experiments, and suggestions about the pleasure center and emotions, the senses, memory, madness, stimulants, and sex.
We found very interesting Kringelbach's exploration of the central place of desire and pleasure in learning. He sees them as providing the foundations for insights, creativity, and thinking. Kringelbach closes with a discussion of anhedonia (the pronounced lack of pleasure) in depression and happiness as a state of contentment where pleasure without desire reigns free.
