Reward processing is remarkably robust against brain damage; reward circuitry is also surprisingly robust against neurodegeneration

Nummenmaa, Lauri, and David Sander. 2020. “Reward and Emotion in the Brain.” PsyArXiv. December 22. doi:10.31234/osf.io/jvahk

Abstract: Pleasure and reward are central for motivation, learning, feeling and allostasis. Although reward is without any doubt an affective phenomenon, there is no consensus concerning its relationship with emotion. In this mini-review we discuss this conceptual issue both from the perspective of theories of reward and emotion as well as human systems neuroimaging. We first describe how the reward process can be understood and dissected as intertwined with the emotion process, in particular in light of the appraisal theories, and then discuss how different facets of the reward process can be studied using neuroimaging and neurostimulation techniques. We conclude that future work needs to focus on mapping the similarities and differences across stimuli and processes that lead to pleasures and rewards and propose that an integrative affective sciences approach would provide means for studying the emotional nature of reward.