If you're in Japan and want to explore how therapy might help, or if you're just ready to talk about what's going on, I warmly invite you to consider a free consultation with a therapist. Here are a few resources:

therapyjp.com - Professional, English-speaking therapists in Japan

tell.jp - Free and confidential English-language support in Japan

OCD Ohanashikai - A support group for those suffering from OCD

The Neural Roots of Motivation

Drawing on recent research and scientific experiments, neuroscientist Camilla Nord offers an new look at the biology behind happiness - exploring the brain's pleasure hotspots, the gut-brain connection, and the effects of electrical stimulation and medication. In her book 'The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health' she bridges cognitive science and neurobiology to show how we can support our mental well-being from the inside out.

Here, we share excerpts from the chapter that explores one of the most mysterious and vital human forces: motivation.

Ask anyone what it means to feel truly at ease, and most will describe a mix of fleeting joys - those little sparks of pleasure that light up a day - and a deeper, long-lasting sense of contentment. Some lean more toward the instant highs of life, others value the slow-burning glow of satisfaction, but both are part of the emotional tapestry we call mental well-being.

To measure how people experience happiness or life satisfaction, sociologists often rely on surveys and rating scales. You've probably come across questions like: “On a scale of one to five, how would you rate your current mood?” or “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?" These tools are widely used and undeniably useful. They give us snapshots of people's inner lives across cultures, ages, and backgrounds.

The problem is - language is slippery. Words like joy, pleasure, and well-being mean different things to different people. Two individuals might score their life satisfaction equally, yet hold entirely different beliefs about what happiness even is. Cultural values, personal philosophy, and lived experiences all color their answers.

Therefore, there are aspects of happiness that no questionnaire dares touch - subtle, unspoken feelings that defy conventional scales.

That's why many neuroscientists are turning to more objective ways of understanding well-being. By studying behavior - how we make decisions, how we learn from our environment - they seek to measure motivation and happiness not just through words, but through action. These methods help bypass personal biases and offer a clearer, more universal lens on what it means to thrive.

If you're in Japan and want to explore how therapy might help, or if you're just ready to talk about what's going on, I warmly invite you to consider a free consultation with a therapist. Here are a few resources:

therapyjp.com - Professional, English-speaking therapists in Japan

tell.jp - Free and confidential English-language support in Japan

OCD Ohanashikai - A support group for those suffering from OCD

Drive

While most people tend to talk about pleasure and satisfaction when asked about happiness, behavioral studies tell us there's more to the story - layers of well-being that often go unspoken. Among these hidden forces, many neuroscientists highlight one powerful ingredient: motivation, or what some call drive.

The idea is surprisingly intuitive: drive is what pushes us to decide whether a reward (or the chance to avoid something unpleasant) is worth the effort we'll need to put in.

You won't uncover drive by asking someone, “How happy do you feel right now?” And yet, drive is almost always a cornerstone of well-being, and by extension, of mental health.

Aristotle once said that happiness is something we seek for its own sake, never as a means to something else. But even that pursuit requires a spark - a desire to reach for something good or steer away from something bad. That spark is motivation. It's what helps us recognize positive experiences and seek them out again. Without enough motivation - and when uplifting experiences are few and far between - well-being becomes difficult, if not impossible, to attain.

That's why drive is a fundamental pillar of mental health.

All creatures, from mice to humans, are wired to chase after the good (like food or safety) and dodge the bad (like pain or danger).

Drive is the behavioral face of well-being - it's about how much effort someone is willing to invest to achieve a goal. It varies from person to person, and most importantly, it can be studied not just in humans but in animals too. Animals can't fill out questionnaires, but they can show us what they're willing to work for. By comparing these behaviors across species, researchers can start to infer the mental processes that underpin them.

And here lies one of drive's greatest advantages: unlike trying to interpret whether an animal is “showing happiness” or “showing depression” - which risks what psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett calls a mental inference error - drive sidesteps guesswork. It gives us a cleaner, more reliable window into the mind, grounded in what we do, not just what we say or seem to feel.

Happiness "Switch"

While drive is undeniably one of the key ingredients of mental health, it shouldn't be confused with happiness, pleasure, or well-being itself.

At a recent conference, I listened to a talk by a well-known public figure - though not a scientist - who, unfortunately, hadn't been told much about his audience. With great enthusiasm, he declared: "Neuroscientists can now switch happiness on and off with electricity!"

Needless to say, the room - filled with researchers and clinicians - was taken aback.

This sort of thing happens often in our field. Someone hears about a single study or a small-scale experiment and draws grand, unfounded conclusions. It's especially common among people who like to slap the prefix "neuro-" onto their profession - neuroconsultants for businesses, neurolinguistic programming in therapy. The allure of the brain's mysteries is so strong that even the most far-fetched claims are met with wide eyes and open ears.

However, as far as I know, there's no happiness switch hidden inside the brain. No magical button to press. Reality, as always, is more nuanced - and far more interesting.

This episode reminded me of one study where, perhaps, researchers did come close to discovering something like a happiness switch.

The study took place over half a century ago, but its findings still resonate today. The story behind it, though, isn't simple.

"Cells that fire together, wire together."

Back in 1954, the Department of Psychology at McGill University in Canada was headed by Donald Hebb, a man now remembered as one of the great pioneers of neuroscience (you've probably heard the term neuroplasticity - Hebb was one of the first to lay its scientific foundation).

Hebb discovered that if one neuron consistently fires just before another, that sequence begins to stick. Over time, the first neuron alone can trigger the second - almost like teaching one light switch to control two bulbs. The second neuron essentially learns that it's supposed to follow the first.

To help people remember this idea, neuroscientists coined a catchy phrase: "Cells that fire together, wire together."

It was a huge leap in our understanding of how the brain forms habits, memories, and emotional patterns.

Today, the brain's ability to adapt and rewire itself is known as Hebbian plasticity - named in honor of Donald Hebb. (It's a bit like naming a disease after the doctor who discovered its cure - except in this case, the discovery often outshines its discoverer.)

By the 1950s, Hebb was already something of a scientific celebrity. His landmark book, The Organization of Behaviour, made waves with its bold claim: that our actions and behaviors are rooted in brain function. Back then, it was a revolutionary idea. And not everyone welcomed it.

In the 1950s, research was split: on one side, there were biologists studying brain cells and the electrochemical signals that pass between them; on the other, experimental psychologists exploring how behavior works. It was at the intersection of these two fields that Hebb's era was born - an era that would shape the very foundation of modern neuroscience.

Thanks to Hebb and his contemporaries, we gained many of the core principles that still guide brain science today. His work laid the groundwork for the breakthroughs that fill textbooks, TED Talks, and mental health clinics across the world.

After reading Hebb's book, social psychologist James Olds was so inspired by the idea of a neural basis for behavior that he packed his bags and headed to Canada to study with Hebb himself. When he arrived in Montreal, he met a young neurophysiologist named Peter Milner.

As history shows, it was this kind of unlikely duo that ends up changing the world. A psychologist brimming with speculative theories and little technical training, paired with a meticulous, brilliant neurophysiologist - together, they stumbled upon a discovery that would shake the very foundations of brain science.

A Minor Slip, a Major Shift

While Olds was still in Canada, Milner taught him how to surgically implant tiny electrical stimulators deep into the brains of rats. By sending small pulses of electricity into different brain regions - artificially “lighting up” neurons - they could observe how the animals reacted. The experiment's aim was deceptively simple: to uncover the brain's core survival mechanisms. That's what they set out to find.

Implanting electrodes into the brain is a delicate surgical procedure that demands precision and a steady hand. James Olds, though a quick learner, wasn't exactly a natural in the operating room. In one of their early experiments, Olds, instead of landing the electrode in the intended region of the brain, it accidentally ended up in an area called the septum. (Years later, Milner would half-jokingly blame the mishap on Olds's impatience - he hadn't waited for the dental cement to fully dry before securing the electrode in place.)

Milner and Olds only realized the misplacement much later - after they had already published papers on their findings. But despite the surgical slip, what happened next changed the game.

They had trained a rat to walk along a lab bench. Each time it moved in the “right” direction, the researchers activated the electrode. What they saw was remarkable: the rat kept coming back for more. It repeated the behavior that triggered the stimulation and steered clear of actions that didn't. This wasn't random - it looked like the rat liked the sensation.

Olds and Milner must have been elated. It seemed they had stumbled onto a brain region that, when stimulated, brought something akin to pleasure. The rat was seeking the stimulation.

Details

But how could they be sure the animal wanted it - not just reacting passively? To test that, Milner designed a bold next step: he would give the rat the power to stimulate its own brain.

The researchers built a special chamber where rats had to stand uncomfortably on their hind legs and stretch up to pull a lever that triggered brain stimulation. The setup forced them to balance on tiptoe - deliberately so. After all, you'd stretch for the top shelf if it held your favorite cookies, but you wouldn't bother if all that was left up there were stale crackers.

And yet, the rats did bother. Over and over again, despite the awkward posture, they reached for the lever. Olds and Milner's hypothesis was confirmed: the rats were motivated to seek out the stimulation - even when it was effortful and inconvenient. In fact, the outcome was even more dramatic than they'd expected.

As they watched, the scientists realized something extraordinary: the rats didn't just press the lever occasionally - they pressed it constantly. Whatever the stimulation was doing, the rats liked it a lot. They were willing to work for it. And so, the time had come to share their discovery with the world.

Headlines soon followed:

“Scientists Discover Brain's Pleasure Center.”

After that, Olds and Milner dedicated years to understanding exactly what this brain stimulation was doing. They called it positive reinforcement - a motivator, like food or sex, that drives effort and behavior. But something about this was… different.

Unlike a hungry rat that stops eating when it's full, these rats never stopped pressing the lever. Some hit it over a thousand times an hour. They didn't seem to get tired of it - at least not mentally. Physically, they collapsed from exhaustion. Some dragged themselves across electrified floors just to get back to the lever. Others would forgo food altogether - starving to death rather than letting go.

But what were they actually feeling? Did they enjoy it? Were they happy?

No one knows.

Human brain

We now know that behaviors similar to those seen in Olds and Milner's rats have also been observed in goldfish, guinea pigs, dolphins, cats, dogs, goats, and monkeys. Their findings sparked a wave of fascination, and ever since, many scientists have dreamed of running the same kind of experiment - with human participants.

However, if one of my colleagues today were to make a similar discovery and proposed stimulating those same brain regions in people, they'd have to jump through a very high stack of hoops. And all that effort would most likely end in a firm rejection.

Something along the lines of:

“Dear Dr. ***, we regret to inform you that your proposal carries a substantial risk of fatality…” Months of paperwork - just to be told no.

Months of paperwork - just to be told no.

But back in the 1950s, things were different. Those bureaucratic safeguards hadn't yet been built. Just a few years after the rat experiments, an American psychiatrist named Robert Galbraith Heath claimed to have achieved similar results - with actual human subjects.

The participants in these experiments were people with brain disorders and convicted criminals. Like the rats before them, they underwent brain surgery to have electrodes implanted, and were given a button to press - each push delivering a burst of stimulation.

As the studies progressed, the team began exploring deeper brain structures, starting with the septal area. In some volunteers, they implanted multiple electrodes. What they found was striking: brain stimulation reliably produced what the researchers called a “subjective experience that was clearly pleasurable.”

In many cases, this sensation had a strongly sexual character.

Heath noted that “regardless of the participant's emotional state or the topic of conversation, stimulation was often accompanied by sexually charged remarks - usually delivered with a wide grin.” (He tactfully avoided going into detail.)

The participants were so absorbed in the effects of stimulation that they ignored a tray of food placed nearby - even though they hadn't eaten for over seven hours.

That's not just interesting. That's astonishing.

Further experiments

By now, you've probably started to get an uneasy feeling about Heath's research. And unfortunately, it only gets more disturbing from here.

Two patients, in particular, are mentioned repeatedly in Heath's reports - both have since become infamous in the history of neuroscience and psychiatry, not because of scientific breakthroughs, but because of the deeply troubling and heartbreaking nature of their cases.

Heath described them in his paper “Pleasure and Brain Activity in Man.” One of the patients - referred to as B-19 - was serving time for marijuana possession. Heath targeted the septal region of his brain with electrical stimulation, claiming his goal was to “cure” the young man of homosexuality. During the sessions, B-19 was coerced into having sexual encounters with women while the stimulation was applied. According to Heath and his team, the experiment was a success - they declared the patient “converted” to heterosexuality.

But the reality was far more troubling. B-19 became completely dependent on the brain stimulation. He pressed the button relentlessly and begged to have it back whenever it was taken away.

The second notable case involved a woman suffering from chronic pain caused by a spinal disc herniation in her lower back. Years of treatment - antidepressants, acupuncture, nerve stimulation, psychotherapy, even surgery - had all failed to bring her relief. Then, Heath's team implanted an electrode into her thalamus, a brain region involved in processing pain. The results were, at first, promising: her pain eased for several months.

But then came the side effects - just as troubling as B-19's.

According to her family, she began pressing the stimulation button so obsessively that she developed a callus on her thumb from adjusting the amplitude control. She lost interest in almost everything else. Her hygiene deteriorated. Her world narrowed to the button and the relief it gave her - everything else faded into the background.

To be honest, it's hard to draw clear conclusions from a study that was so deeply unethical. Today, such an experiment would be absolutely unthinkable. Even back then, many voiced serious concerns.

But ethics aside, there are also scientific problems that deserve a closer look. At the time, the discovery of so-called “pleasure centers” in the brain caused such a stir that few paused to question the findings. Now is a good time to revisit those doubts.

Evidence

Heath labeled what patient B-19 experienced as pleasure. In his writings, he claimed that participants became more sociable, seemed more at ease with their surroundings, and talked about pleasant topics. But where was the objective evidence that they were actually enjoying themselves?

Despite working with human subjects, Heath relied almost entirely on his own interpretations of their behaviors - he didn't directly ask them about their experience. That's a shaky foundation for any scientific conclusion. A more rigorous approach would have been to ask each participant what the stimulation felt like and why they found it appealing.

Ironically, much of what Heath reported could have been observed in rats. In both humans and animals, stimulation of the septal region led to dramatic behavioral changes. In extreme cases, it even seemed to override basic needs like eating or personal hygiene. But in neither case do we truly know what the subjects felt.

It's likely that Heath fell into what's known as a mental inference error - drawing conclusions about someone's internal state based solely on their behavior. And what's striking is that he had the chance to ask his participants directly… but didn't.

Because patient B-19 showed no interest in anything except brain stimulation, Heath assumed he must have been experiencing pleasure.

But I believe - and many scientists would agree - that neither the rats nor Heath's human subjects were actually feeling pleasure in the way we understand it. There's a growing body of work that questions that assumption.

Even in the absence of any reported pleasure, drive can look a lot like happiness. The rats, for instance, were willing to endure electric shocks just to receive stimulation in the septal region of their brains. The human subjects did things they would never have agreed to under normal circumstances - enduring hunger, or engaging in sexual acts they found undesirable. The compulsive lever-pressing, the obsession with the stimulation button, the neglect of food and comfort - all pointed to one thing: an overwhelming desire for the stimulation.

And desire, in psychological terms, is a sign that the brain has assigned positive value to something.

So yes, the rats and the humans clearly wanted the stimulation. But did they like it?

That's another question entirely.

In fact, many aspects of the experience seemed deeply unpleasant. Personally, I wouldn't want to try it. And this distinction - between what we want and what we enjoy - is not just semantic. It's one of the most important distinctions in neuroscience.

Both are essential for mental health, but they are powered by entirely different brain systems.

Drive is vital for our well-being. It keeps us moving forward, striving, acting. But by itself, it doesn't deliver joy. It's simply the engine that gets us closer to the things that do. Food, love, creativity, connection - these are what bring us true satisfaction.

Electrical brain stimulation, it turns out, isn't what people ultimately want. What it did show us, though, is how deeply embedded certain drives are in the brain - drives for things essential to survival: water, food, sex.

The quest to find the brain's “pleasure center” didn't quite hit the jackpot it hoped for. But in the process, we uncovered something just as meaningful: a clearer map of the brain's machinery for survival.

Hope and Help Are Within Reach

If you're in Japan and want to explore how therapy might help, or if you're just ready to talk about what's going on, I warmly invite you to consider a free consultation with a therapist. Here are a few resources:

• therapyjp.com - Professional, English-speaking therapists in Japan
• tell.jp - Free and confidential English-language support in Japan
• OCD Ohanashikai - A support group for those suffering from OCD