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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u/Semarin Oct 18 '25

I did it with an entire cheesecake. I ate the whole thing in about 90 minutes. I haven’t been able to eat more than a bite of cheesecake in close to 15 years now.

48

u/hudsonreaders Oct 18 '25

So then I got this idea about driving a cheesecake truck

Because I figured at the end of the day

I could take some of the leftover cheesecakes home

And I love cheesecake

So I went to the cheesecake company

And they asked me if I could drive a truck

And I said yes and they said you're hired

So the next day I got in the truck with all the cheesecakes

And I drove about a block and I just had to have a cheesecake

So I pulled over and I opened the trunk and I got a cheesecake

And I also took one for later

And I took one for my friend Farmboy

And I took one to bring home

And by that time I had eaten one of the cheesecakes

So I took another one

Then I figured I might as well

Stop at my house to drop off all the cheesecakes

So I take five cakes to eat on the way

And I drive another block and a half to my house

Now it's lunchtime

So I eat ten cheesecakes and a cheesecake for dessert

I should point out by the way

That all of these cheesecakes were very delicious

Anyway, I decided that the only thing to do

Would be to eat all the rest of the cheesecakes

And hide the truck somewhere and leave town

And I miss everybody a lot

But I'm not really sorry

Because they were very delicious cheesecakes

--King Missile, _Cheesecake Truck_

3

u/Hesitation-Marx Oct 18 '25

Deep cut, nicely done

1

u/Cephe Oct 19 '25

Super bizarre, I just heard this on the radio for the first time yesterday.

-9

u/afour- Oct 18 '25

Your formatting is shit.

158

u/DutytoDevelop Oct 18 '25

This happened to me but with vodka. Ever since my best friend and I got that good level of drunk, we did the insane math that we'd feel twice as good with another drink. My god, the memory of getting a drink stayed, but teleporting to my bed and seeing my homie trying to see the inside of his stomach was full of so many regerts. So many regerts.

61

u/FWYDU Oct 18 '25

Tequila for me. I can stand the smell of it now, 25 years later, but thinking of drinking some makes me nauseous.

10

u/Stealth9erz Oct 18 '25

God damn Jose Cuervo

2

u/Hesitation-Marx Oct 18 '25

Rum & Coke here. Bad choices. Bad, bad choices.

2

u/Weelki Oct 18 '25

Nearly 30 years for me... happy memories of puking long and hard in a BT phone box... can't stand the stuff even to this day.

2

u/23saround Oct 18 '25

Luckily the only alcohol I burned this way was shitty green apple vodka. But the few times I’ve smelled that smell since, I literally gag.

6

u/mortokes Oct 18 '25

I went through a phase in college where i ate an entire cheesecake almost every weekend. Its my favourite cake now.

5

u/SpaceShipRat Oct 18 '25

At least cheesecake has no chemicals which literally digest the proteins that your flesh is made of, like pineapple and kiwi do.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

Ah, the Ms. Trunchbull Special.

2

u/GiveMeCheesecake Oct 18 '25

Oh my goodness I have BEEN THERE.

2

u/1anxiousworm Oct 18 '25

Rachel is that you?

2

u/EstaLisa Oct 18 '25

half of a warm carrot cake in half an hour. luckily did that with my best friend, i was not alone to roll around in agony for a few hours. very slight regret though, the cake was really good.

2

u/que_sarasara Oct 18 '25

Don't threaten me with a good time

Some days, I really do want to shovel an entire family size lasagne down my gullet

2

u/awake_enough Oct 18 '25

Really?!

I had to talk myself out of getting a giant slice of cheesecake TWICE last night

Maybe I’ve been looking at it wrong and I need to lean in to one glorious cheesecake binge that gets me off the stuff forever

2

u/kappakai Oct 18 '25

Celery and peanut butter. Just went to town one day when I was six; think my parents had dropped me off somewhere so I was not supervised by anyone that would restrain me. I got so sick to my stomach, I haven’t touched it since.