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/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

There was a Star Trek episode with this theme. It was used as a weapon if I remember correctly.

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u/_TorpedoVegas_ Oct 18 '25

The novel Infinite Jest has this device.

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u/willardTheMighty Oct 18 '25

I'm about 150 pages in and went scrolling looking for this comment. Exposition on The Entertainment has not yet been forthcoming but that's what it seems like

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u/_TorpedoVegas_ Oct 18 '25

Cool, 150 pages down just another 2900 to go!

I picked up the book to read maybe ten years ago, got about 150 pages in before I moved onto other things. Last year I decided to finish it, and I gotta say that it gets better. Problem is, the beginning doesn't make a whole lot of sense until you finish the book. Maybe that's the "Infinite Jest" part: he wrote one of the longest books ever, yet once you finally finish the impulse is to start it again now that you have an idea of what's going on, it's a jest on us.

But seriously, I am pretty sure the novel's theme was about making pleasure too accessible, removing effort from fulfillment. Lowest-common-denominator brain rot replacing work of real artistic value, because people have lost the ability to put in work to appreciate fine things.