James Olds Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
About
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?
Our lab has used optogenetic, drug microinjection, and other painless techniques to manipulate neural components of mesocorticolimbic systems in rodents, combined with sophisticated psychological and behavioral analysis techniques to assess changes in reward learning, ‘liking’ vs ‘wanting’, and other motivations and emotions.
Recent Representative Publications
Morales I, Berridge K. C. Optogenetic hedonic hotspots in orbitofrontal cortex and insula: Causing enhancement of sweetness ‘liking’. Journal of Neuroscience (2026): e0865252026. PMC13108383 https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2026/03/12/JNEUROSCI.0865-25.2026
Robinson, T. E. & Berridge, K. C. Can the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction incorporate addiction to opioid drugs? Psychopharmacology, (2026). PMC13091067. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-025-07001-8
Nguyen, D. & Berridge, K.C. Wanting what hurts: D1 dopamine neuronal stimulation in central nucleus of amygdala is sufficient to induce maladaptive attraction to a shock rod. Communications Biology, 8(1):1574. (2025). PMC12624019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08944-6
Robinson TE & Berridge KC. The incentive-sensitization theory of addiction 30 years on. Annual Review of Psychology 76: 29-58 (2025). https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-psych-011624-024031
Berridge, K. C. Separating desire from prediction of outcome value. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27 (10), 932-946 (2023). PMC 1052790 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2023.07.007
Baumgartner, H. M., Schulkin, J., & Berridge, K. C. Activating corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) systems in nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and bed nucleus of stria terminalis: Incentive motivation or aversive motivation? Biological Psychiatry, 89: 1162–1175 (2021). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.01.007
Nguyen, D., Naffziger, E.M., Berridge, K.C. Positive affect: nature and brain bases of liking and wanting. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 39:72-78 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.02.013 PMCID: PMC7978410
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
Berridge, K.C. Affective valence in the brain: modules or modes? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 20, 225-234 (2019).
Berridge, K. C. Evolving concepts of emotion and motivation. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1647, 1-20 (2018). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01647
Berridge, K.C. & Kringelbach, M.L. Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646-664 (2015). PMC4425246
Area
Alternate Office
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Field(s) of Study
- Psychology & Neuroscience, Affective Neuroscience
