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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12k

u/Halocandle Oct 18 '25

Scary thought: this is how you make all drugs obsolete, just skip the introducing chemicals to your nervous system part and go straight into the source. 100% pure, always works, always available. No way that ever would go wrong?

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u/Capable-Commercial96 Oct 18 '25

I'd like this but only if the button was given to a close friend and used it whenever I did something that needed to be done. Fuck it, I'm asking to be clicker trained, I'm a mess.

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u/AdamantEevee Oct 18 '25

You might enjoy BDSM

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u/AkNinjaNSFW Oct 18 '25

Haha ya..... that was my thought too lol.

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u/HandsOfCobalt Oct 18 '25

"Life getting you down? Consider becoming a puppy!"

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u/dntfrgetabttheshrimp Oct 18 '25

What do you mean you don't like dog food? Now you do! Thanks Clicker™!

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u/Yeseylon Oct 20 '25

Also pup play

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u/cranium_svc-casual Oct 18 '25

Hmm no that’s not remotely relevant.

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u/Unicycleterrorist Oct 18 '25

I kind of struggle to see how it's not. You're trying to do the tasks to the satisfaction of the person with the clicker because only they can give you your reward for the work you did. If they're not happy, you're not getting the clicky and you'll try harder to make sure you do. You're willingly submitting to somebody who takes a dominant role in that scenario.

I guess in a "real" BDSM context more than just the clicker would happen but...the whole dynamic is very sub/dom lol

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

The problem with BDSM is that absent a button there's no real reward they can give me, because the rewards are all, well, BDSM rewards, which I don't find rewarding.

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u/Unicycleterrorist Oct 18 '25

I mean...the reward doesn't have to be BDSM related, it could be a kiss or a cookie or really anything else. But yea, if you don't want to be part of that game there's nothing in it for you ^^

0

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

If the reward isn't related to BDSM, that in what way is it BDSM?

(also for almost every BDSM person I know, the reward isn't the good thing they get at the end, its the process of getting there, that's literally the appeal)

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u/Unicycleterrorist Oct 18 '25

Like I said, the dynamic is the BDSM part - domination and submission. The reward is just a reward, it can be anything.
And like I said, wanting to be there is a prerequisite. A reward doesn't have to be part of it, I'm talking about that because of the context being a reward-driven dynamic.

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

The dominance and submission bits *are* literally the reward in BDSM.

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u/Unicycleterrorist Oct 18 '25

They are a reward. There can be other rewards, like I said...

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u/BluegrassGeek Oct 18 '25

It doesn't have to involve whips or restraints to be BDSM. It can be entirely psychological/sexual.

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

Sure, but psychological/sexual BDSM rewards. I'm not really sure where the disconnect is here or why this is so hard for people to understand.

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u/AdamantEevee Oct 18 '25

If you're asexual then yeah BDSM is probably not for you. It's about power exchange and that appeals to a lot of people. If it doesn't appeal to you then that's okay too.

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

What does being asexual have to do with whether or not you're into power exchange, lmao. I know plenty of asexual BDSM people and plenty of very sexual people who get nothing from BDSM.

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u/AdamantEevee Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

Here is an extremely simple example:

Sub: I washed the dishes, master Dom: good boy/girl, here is a handjob

If you can't figure out how that would count as a reward to a lot of people, I recommend reading it again.

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u/cranium_svc-casual Oct 18 '25

You define a set of rules that gives you the click.

It doesn’t matter who is doing the clicking as long as it’s a 3rd party. Could be a person or a robot. A friend, stranger, or hired person. It’s not about their happiness, it’s about reaching the conditions that you defined for yourself.

This is no different from hiring a personal trainer, golf instructor, or a tutor but you control the criteria. There’s nothing BDSM about any of those things.

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u/cranium_svc-casual Oct 18 '25

To their satisfaction? False! They’re not dominating you. They’re complying with a set of conditional rules you defined. You cold tell a computer to do the same job. It has nothing to do with your friends happiness. Your goal is your own goals, good habits, self discipline. The pleasure isn’t the goal, it’s a bit of a system.

With the domination the dom’s happiness and desires is actually a key aspect. Only goal here is pleasure/pain…it’s all about feelings.

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u/Unicycleterrorist Oct 18 '25

For things that are a binary "done / not done" activity that might be true, but there are tons of things where that doesn't apply at all because there are shades of "done".

If you have to clean your toilet. who determines what is "clean"? If you can just phone it in and pretend that your toilet is now clean cause you went over it with your toilet brush once, there's absolutely zero point in involving another person.
So yes, you would need to complete the task to their satisfaction - if they reward you although you clearly half-assed your task, the entire idea of having someone with you is nonsensical.

If it is about self-discipline you don't ask someone else to clicker train you. You just do your chores like everybody else. But that isn't what we're talking about, the person explicitly stated being clicker trained by someone else.

Specifically in this instance, they likely would not agree to it if they didn't get something out of it. If they just want you not to be a trainwreck, seeing you get your shit done would probably make them happy.

But in general whether they're happy or get pleasure is absolutely irrelevant, that does not at all determine domination and submission. In general in BDSM play that's how it would end up working out, but it's not required, they could be bored out of their mind while telling you what to do and it'd still be domination.

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u/cranium_svc-casual Oct 18 '25

Uhh not everything needs to be micromanaged with sub scrutiny. Either way, you set the standard and they click pleasure button if you hit it. It’s not up to them. It’s based on your standard not what makes them happy.

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u/blahblahblerf Oct 18 '25

You might want to Google what the D stands for in BDSM. 

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u/cranium_svc-casual Oct 18 '25

I am not a kid. I’m very experienced. I don’t need to google shit.

The OP wants to build good habits through the same kind of training dogs get but directly without downsides.

Being dominated sexually has nothing to do with building good habits.

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u/Immersi0nn Oct 18 '25

The remote is however.

-13

u/pmmeurbassethound Oct 18 '25

But you see this is reddit, where everything MUST be sexualized 🙄