Loving Linguistics

Reading through Unit 3B, I noticed that one section of the unit really stood out to me: the part regarding the hypothalamus. For those who are unaware, the hypothalamus is a neural structure lying below the thalamus. It directs several maintenance activities like eating and drinking and helps govern the endocrine system through the pituitary gland. However, the part that really got me was the idea that the hypothalamus is linked to emotion and reward. Why did this stick with me? The answer can be found in James Olds and Peter Milner's experiment in 1954. Their goal was to implant an electrode in a rat's reticular formation. However, they misplaced an electrode, putting it in a section of the rat's hypothalamus. When the rat discovered a button that stimulated that electrode, it continuously returned to that button to receive that stimulus, even crossing an electrified grid that it wouldn't cross to get food or water. The doctors realized that they discovered a center that, if stimulated, can cause extreme pleasure in animals. What's scary is, later scientists have been able to use this pleasure center to practically control animals, almost like they're remote controlled toy cars. Of course, the book asks if humans have this "pleasure center" in their hypothalamus as well. It turns out we do, but it works better by itself than when stimulated from an outside source. However, one can have a genetically disposed deficiency called reward deficiency syndrome, which causes somebody to become addicted to something like alcohol or drugs in order to replace whatever pleasure they feel they're missing in their hypothalamus. This section about the hypothalamus both freaked me out and amazed me. Never before have I thought that mind control was technically possible, even if it's used more on animals than on humans. Could humans be controlled through the hypothalamus, is it possible that those with reward deficiency syndrome can be controlled more easily than others, and would it be ethical (in fact, is it ethical to control animals like rats)? Now I'm pumped to cover this section in more depth as a class.