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Kent C. Berridge

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Kent Berridge
Born1957 (age 67–68)
Alma materUniversity of California, Davis (BS)
University of Pennsylvania (PhD)
Scientific career
FieldsBiopsychology
Neuroscience
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan

Kent Charles Berridge[1] (born 1957) is an American academic who is James Olds Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan. He is known for researching the brain mechanisms of affect, emotion, and motivation, and in particular, for originating the "wanting"/"liking" (or incentive salience) theory of motivation and pleasure, and, with Terry Robinson, the incentive sensitization theory of addiction.[2] Berridge was a joint winner of the 2018 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology[3] and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.[2]

Early life and education

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Berridge was born in 1957.[4] He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Davis in 1979, followed by a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.[2]

Research

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Berridge conducts research relating to brain systems of motivation, affect, reward “liking”, reward “wanting”, emotion, fear, pleasure, drug addiction, eating disorders, and decision utility.[2] He also studies natural syntactical chains of behavior (e.g. grooming; taste response patterns) in animals with colleague Dr. J. Wayne Aldridge.[5] With Piotr Winkielman, he has investigated the issue of unconscious emotion in humans.[6]

Liking

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Berridge is known for his work on the brain systems for pleasure (“liking”).[2][7] Using an assay for “liking” called Taste Reactivity Analysis developed by taste researchers, Berridge measures facial palatability responses to tastes, which are similar between rodents, primates and humans.[8] When something enjoyably sweet is tasted, characteristic licking responses occur. When something aversively bitter is tasted, gaping and head shaking occur. Berridge has helped identify "hedonic hotspots" in the brain, such as the nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum, where opioid, endocannabinoid, and GABA neurotransmission coordinate the “liking” of tastes. Berridge postulates that these hedonic hotspots may be crucial for how the brain produces the hedonic pleasurable feelings common to delicious food, sex, drugs, and other rewards (a role previously thought to be played mostly by brain dopamine systems).

Addiction

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Berridge and colleague Terry Robinson have formulated a contemporary theory of addiction called the Incentive Sensitization Theory of Addiction.[9] According to this theory, drug addiction develops from a sensitization of the mesolimbic dopamine system. Dopamine normally functions to attribute incentive salience to stimuli associated with rewards like food and sex, and triggers reward “wanting”. Drugs hijack this “wanting” system. Following repeated use of drugs, the dopamine system becomes hyper-responsive and drug cues become hyper-salient. This means drug cues are nearly impossible for addicts to ignore, and when they are encountered they can lead to intense cravings and/or relapse. This sensitized cue-triggered drug 'wanting' can persist for years after an addict quits drugs, and long after drug withdrawal has ceased. This fact may account for the tendency of former addicts to relapse to drug use after quitting, sometimes even after many years of abstinence.

Dopamine

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Berridge and Robinson helped redefine the role of mesolimbic dopamine in the brain,[10] which had previously been viewed as a pleasure neurotransmitter. Dopamine is no longer widely regarded as a pleasure transmitter. Instead, dopamine is thought to mediate reward, that is, to attribute incentive salience to reward-associated stimuli.

Awards

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Berridge has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Senior Scholar.[2] He shared the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 2016[11] and the 2018 Grawemeyer Award for Outstanding Ideas in Psychology with Terry Robinson.[3] He was awarded the APS William James Fellow Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 2023[7] and elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.[2]

See also

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Selected publications

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Books

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  • Morten L. Kringelbach; Kent C. Berridge (2010). Pleasures of the Brain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533102-8.

Articles

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References

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  1. ^ "Curriculum Vitae: Kent Charles Berridge" (PDF). College of LSA. University of Michigan. Retrieved 3 August 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Kent C. Berridge: NAS". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 3 August 2025.
  3. ^ a b "Grawemeyer Awards, Psychology". grawemeyer.org. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
  4. ^ "Kent Berridge Named One of the 50 Most Influential Living Psychologists in the World | U-M LSA Department of Psychology". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
  5. ^ Berridge, Kent C; Robinson, Terry E; Aldridge, J Wayne (February 2009). "Dissecting components of reward: 'liking', 'wanting', and learning". Current Opinion in Pharmacology. 9 (1): 65–73. doi:10.1016/j.coph.2008.12.014. ISSN 1471-4892. PMC 2756052. PMID 19162544.
  6. ^ Berridge, Kent; Winkielman, Piotr (January 2003). "What is an unconscious emotion?(The case for unconscious "liking")". Cognition and Emotion. 17 (2): 181–211. doi:10.1080/02699930302289. eISSN 1464-0600. ISSN 0269-9931. PMID 29715719.
  7. ^ a b "Kent Berridge and Vonnie McLoyd Receive APS William James Fellow Awards". University of Michigan. Retrieved 3 August 2025.
  8. ^ Videos of Pleasure-elicited Reactions Archived 2018-01-25 at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ^ Robinson, T.E., Berridge, K.C. The neural basis of drug craving: an incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. Brain Res Brain Res Rev. 1993 Sep-Dec;18(3):247-91.
  10. ^ Berridge, K.C., Robinson, T.E. What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? Brain Res Brain Res Rev. 1998 Dec;28(3):309-69.
  11. ^ "APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions". American Psychological Association. Retrieved 3 August 2025.
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