James Olds Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
About
Additional Research Interests: Learning, Motivation, Neuroscience
Research in my lab seeks better answers to questions, such as:
- How is pleasure generated in the brain?
- What are the neural bases of reward wanting and liking?
- How are rewards learned?
- How do brain motivation systems work?
- How is appetite controlled?
- What causes addiction?
- How does the brain distinguish pleasant from unpleasant?
- How does fear relate to desire?
We use optogenetic, drug microinjection, and other painless techniques to manipulate neural components of mesocorticolimbic systems in rodents, combined with sophisticated behavioral analysis techniques to assess changes in reward learning, ‘liking’, and ‘wanting’ or other motivation processes. Each graduate student in our lab has an individualized research program focused on a selection from these topics guided by their own interests.
Recent Representative Publications
Warlow, S.M., Naffziger, E.E. & Berridge, K.C. The central amygdala recruits mesocorticolimbic circuitry for pursuit of reward or pain. Nature Communications 11, 2716 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16407-1
Baumgartner, H.M., Cole, S.L., Olney, J.J., Berridge, K.C. Desire or dread from nucleus accumbens inhibitions: reversed by same-site optogenetic excitations. Journal of Neuroscience, 40(13): 2737-2752 (2020)
Berridge, K.C. Affective valence in the brain: modules or modes? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 20, 225-234 (2019).
Cole, S.L., Robinson, M.J.F. & Berridge, K.C. Optogenetic self-stimulation in the nucleus accumbens: D1 reward versus D2 ambivalence. PLoS ONE, 13 (11), e0207694 (2018).
Berridge, K. C. Evolving concepts of emotion and motivation. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1647, 1-20 (2018). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01647
Olney, J.J., Warlow, S.M., Naffziger, E.E. & Berridge, K.C. Current perspectives on incentive salience and applications to clinical disorders. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 22: 59-69, (2018).
Castro, D. C. & Berridge, K.C. Opioid and orexin hedonic hotspots in rat orbitofrontal cortex and insula. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Online first doi: 10.1073/pnas.1705753114 (2017).
Berridge, K.C. & Robinson, T.E. Liking, wanting, and the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. American Psychologist 7(8), 670-679, (2016).
Berridge, K.C. & Kringelbach, M.L. Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646-664 (2015). PMC4425246
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