Seeking pleasure: food, sex & music - University of Oxford

Seeking pleasure: food, sex & music - University of Oxford:

'via Blog this'‘It’s no accident,’ he points out, ‘that food and sex are our primary sources of pleasure. They are critical for our survival, so having dedicated pleasure networks in the brain that tend to make us seek them out makes absolute sense.’

Being around other people is also pleasurable, he says. Social interactions are part of what sustains us as humans, and pleasure plays a key role in this. ‘It’s one reason why food is more enjoyable with other people, for example.’

On top of the basic pleasure-inducing elements of food, sex, and other people which have helped our survival, there are the higher-order sources of enjoyment such as music, art and beauty, or monetary rewards. But these are processed in the brain in similar ways. ‘Brain scanning experiments have shown that music hits the same parts as food or sex,’ says Professor Kringelbach.