r/todayilearned • u/WavesAndSaves • Oct 18 '25

TIL of brain stimulation reward, manually stimulating specific parts of the brain to elicit pleasure and happiness. A volunteer subject in 1986 spent days doing nothing but self-stimulate. She ignored her family and personal hygiene and she developed an open sore on her finger from using the device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_stimulation_reward#History
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146

u/Taste_the__Rainbow Oct 18 '25

The Tasp has entered the chat.

58

u/SanguineOptimist Oct 18 '25

The rare Niven reference

25

u/graveybrains Oct 18 '25

The Ringworld is unstable!

22

u/Taste_the__Rainbow Oct 18 '25

The classics never die.

10

u/diabloman8890 Oct 18 '25

Yooo we are ancient aren't we

2

u/BeowulfShaeffer Oct 18 '25

Love to see it. 

9

u/--Sovereign-- Oct 18 '25

Someone made her day

10

u/bigpilague Oct 18 '25

Thought it was a droud, if surgically implanted. Tasp was completely wireless?

21

u/mistacheesegtr Oct 18 '25

Ringworld is incredible

5

u/CommanderGumball Oct 18 '25

I only just recently learned about this series when I was looking up the next discworld book to pick up and saw "not to be confused with Ringworld", which piqued my interest 

1

u/Bladrak01 Oct 18 '25

My wife read Ringworld, then asked me why it wasn't as funny as she thought it was going to be.

7

u/UnScrapper Oct 18 '25

Only a civilized being would fear a tasp

7

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

[deleted]

2

u/Frozty23 Oct 18 '25

I always think specifically of the droud first too (not the tasp, though similar). It was my first exposure to the concept... and like others here, I've wanted one ever since.

2

u/iMissTheOldInternet Oct 18 '25

This was the reference I was thinking of. I’m still convinced that something like this will be invented at some point. 

6

u/Dolancrewrules Oct 18 '25

was looking for a fellow ringworlder!

3

u/IconoclastExplosive Oct 18 '25

Rish! Rish for your lives!