ABSTRACT
Recent advances in neuroanatomy, electrophysiology, and neuropharmacology have contributed enormously to our understanding of the neural structures that support rewarding brain stimulation in animals and of their functions during more naturalistic behaviors. It has been proposed that these so-called “reward pathways” constitute a brain “system” that appears to have evolved to amplify the effects of biologically significant stimuli and related responses in order to modify the organism’s adaptive repertoire. This biological function would of necessity be related to the psychological constructs of attention, reward, and memory.
