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Reward system

Ventral pallidum: why you want more than you enjoy

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You crave something intensely, but once you get it, the pleasure doesn't really follow. This page covers what the ventral pallidum does to amplify liking and wanting, what activates it, what blunts it, and three sourced exercises.

A hedonic hotspot and key output of the reward circuit that amplifies both 'liking' and 'wanting'.

Lights up with
consummatory pleasure · savoring · wanting
Quiets with
satiety · anhedonia
When it is strained
craving that outruns enjoyment · blunted pleasure

Train it

Savoring

daily

Deliberately dwell on a pleasant moment as it happens.

Source Savoring amplifies 'liking' and positive affect (Bryant & Veroff).

Gratitude practice

3 items/day

Note a few genuinely good things already present.

Source Gratitude practice is linked to greater well-being and reward sensitivity.

Simple pleasures

daily

Seek small, real, unhurried rewards.

Source Genuine small rewards help recalibrate 'liking' against compulsive 'wanting' (Berridge's dissociation).

Related regions

Nucleus accumbens · Ventral tegmental area · Dorsal striatum · Prefrontal cortex

See all 28 regions

This page is the general mechanism, the same for everyone. Elevate estimates which of your own regions are active from what you write.

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Educational self-understanding tool: not medical advice, not a diagnosis.