In this episode, I speak with Kent C. Berridge, the James Olds Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, whose pioneering work has reshaped how we understand pleasure, motivation, and addiction. Kent explains the crucial distinction between “liking” and “wanting,” showing how dopamine drives craving and desire rather than pleasure itself. We trace the history of neuroscience discoveries, from early experiments with rats pressing levers to stimulate brain reward centers, to the identification of hedonic hotspots in the brain that genuinely generate pleasure.

We explore how this distinction helps explain phenomena like irrational cravings in addiction, where people may intensely want a drug even if they no longer enjoy it. Kent connects this to broader issues, including depression, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia, where wanting and liking can become uncoupled. We also discuss how these insights apply beyond clinical settings, from understanding why students may not always want to learn despite liking the subject, to how everyday cues like social media notifications hijack our dopamine systems.

Our conversation also considers the future of this research: from possible biomedical treatments for compulsive cravings to the role of meditation and cultural practices in shaping pleasure. Kent emphasizes that understanding how liking and wanting operate separately not only deepens our knowledge of the brain but also helps us cultivate empathy for people struggling with addiction and mental health challenges. This episode invites listeners to reflect on their own habits, pleasures, and desires—and what it really means to like something versus simply wanting it.

00:00 – Introduction: Welcoming Kent C. Berridge and the study of pleasure
01:00 – The story of James Olds and the discovery of brain reward systems
03:00 – How early experiments with rats changed our understanding of motivation
06:00 – Separating liking from wanting: where neuroscience challenged assumptions
09:00 – Dopamine’s true role: desire, not pleasure
12:00 – The implications of wanting without liking in addiction
15:00 – Sensitization theory and how addiction rewires desire
18:00 – Understanding irrational craving and the challenge of relapse
21:00 – Depression, anhedonia, and the neuroscience of motivation loss
24:00 – What this tells us about learning, teaching, and motivation
26:00 – Hedonic hotspots: the brain’s pleasure-generating centers
30:00 – How the brain decides what to like (and how that can change)
33:00 – Meditation, bliss, and the science of pure pleasure
36:00 – Addiction, empathy, and the limits of willpower
38:00 – Education, dopamine, and how to make learning desirable
40:00 – Closing reflections: pleasure, purpose, and the future of neuroscience