ReviewNeuron2015
Pleasure systems in the brain.
Review in Neuron, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 616 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
616 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Sexual Health After Neurological Disorders: A Comprehensive Umbrella Review of Treatment Evidence.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Pooled it
- Neural correlates of negative aesthetic evaluations in visual art: a neuroimaging meta-analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Pooled it
- Human neural correlates of emotional well-being (EWB): a preliminary systematic review and meta-analysis of MRI studies based on a recent consensus definition.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- The effect of intranasal oxytocin on social reward processing in humans: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Music therapy integrated virtual reality education for preoperative anxiety in gynecological surgery.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Effects of Acupuncture-Combined Tuina on Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2026Trial
- Effects of opioid blockade on taste perception across smoking status: an analysis of detection thresholds, intensity, and pleasantness.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2025Trial
- Opioidergic modulation of monetary incentive delay fMRI responses.Psychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Efficacy ofWorld journal of psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Efficacy and Safety of Toludesvenlafaxine Hydrochloride Sustained-Release Tablets in Depression With Anhedonia: A Single-Arm, Multicenter Clinical Study.Depression and anxiety · 2025Trial
- Amplification of positivity for depression and anxiety: Neural prediction of treatment response.Behaviour research and therapy · 2024Trial
- Effects of dopamine and opioid receptor antagonism on the neural processing of social and nonsocial rewards.Human brain mapping · 2024Trial
- Facial mimicry is not modulated by dopamine D2/3 and opioid receptor antagonism.Psychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Nucleus Accumbens and Ventral Tegmental Area Functional Connectivity as a Marker of Reward Sensitivity in Infancy.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Sexual Dysregulation After Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke: A Critical Narrative Review of Neurobiology, Clinical Phenotypes, and Management.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Mitochondrial calcium influx-driven bioenergetics selectively enable drug addiction.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Social Mistreatment Effect on Alcohol Misuse Trajectories Is Moderated by Subcortical Network Activation During Error Processing.Addiction biology · 2026Article
- Inferring multi-organ genetic connections using imaging and clinical data through Mendelian randomization.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Conative inference as a mechanism of allostatic resilience: wanting to be and being to want.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Radiomodulation-The Final Frontier of Radiosurgery?Brain sciences · 2026Review
556 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Pleasure is mediated by well-developed mesocorticolimbic circuitry and serves adaptive functions. In affective disorders, anhedonia (lack of pleasure) or dysphoria (negative affect) can result from breakdowns of that hedonic system. Human neuroimaging studies indicate that surprisingly similar circuitry is activated by quite diverse pleasures, suggesting a common neural currency shared by all. Wanting for reward is generated by a large and distributed brain system. Liking, or pleasure itself, is generated by a smaller set of hedonic hot spots within limbic circuitry. Those hot spots also can be embedded in broader anatomical patterns of valence organization, such as in a keyboard pattern of nucleus accumbens generators for desire versus dread. In contrast, some of the best known textbook candidates for pleasure generators, including classic pleasure electrodes and the mesolimbic dopamine system, may not generate pleasure after all. These emerging insights into brain pleasure mechanisms may eventually facilitate better treatments for affective disorders.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.