Dr. Kent Berridge

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525 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 4 Aug

Dr. Kent Berridge’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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We're Out of Time · Wanting vs Liking: Why Addiction Isn't About Pleasure | Dr. Kent Berridge · 4 Aug 2026 podcast

And what we're doing is what's called optogenetic brain stimulation, where a laser light can activate neurons.

Here we're doing it in the amygdala, which is kind of a part that recognizes, it perceives the world, visual and other percepts, and it kind of puts the motivational value on them.

But it turns on the dopamine system.

So what we're doing is activating this amygdala whenever a rat, say, works for a sugar pellet or whenever it works for intravenous coagulation.

or intravenous .

Or, and here's the compulsive part, whenever it approaches a nasty shock rod, which is an electric rod, it sticks out of the wall, and the rat does not have to touch it.

But a normal rat will touch it once, maybe twice, get an electric shock, and then will stay far away from it as possible, and may even bury it with sand that's in the cage.

It's a defensive response that they do.

That's a normal rat.

But the rat who has this amygdala activation paired with the shock rod gets a shock,

comes back, is really curious, is fascinated by this rod that shocked it, hovers over, gets another shock, hovers over, gets another shock, puts its mouth on it, gets another shock.

It may get 20 shocks, up to 20 shocks in a half-hour session.

If it gets more than 20, if it gets to 20, we take it out so that it won't hurt itself any further.

This is a rat who's compulsively seeking this rod that hurts it.

There's no pleasure at all.

But the rats who have the amygdala stimulation paired with sugar, they become sugar addicts who ignore intravenous coagulation.

or intravenous opioids.

If they've had this stimulation.

If we take a different rat and we pair the stimulation with cocaine, it becomes cocaine.

okay but i've never considered why some people gravitate to and some do you know why that is well i think there are two reasons one reason is is that they're seeking different things you know very pleasant and kind of sedating and makes all the bad things go in life go away

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