Project 1 Research Post 1

I didn’t have any clue where to begin when I first thought about this project, so I just started out searching for some research on desire, what it really is, different explanations of it, or even how it affects different people or affects our perceptions or actions, and I came across this article that had some really interesting points.

“While desires are often classified as emotions by laypersons, psychologists often describe desires as different from emotions. For psychologists, desires arise from bodily structures and functions (e.g., the stomach needing food and the blood needing oxygen). On the other hand, emotions arise from a person's mental state. A 2008 study by the University of Michigan indicated that, while humans experience desire and fear as psychological opposites, they share the same brain circuit.^[8] A 2008 study entitled "The Neural Correlates of Desire" showed that the human brain categorizes any stimulus according to its desirability by activating three different brain areas: the superior orbitofrontal cortex, the mid-cingulate cortex, and the anterior cingulate cortex.^[9]

While the "neuroscience of happiness and well-being is still in its infancy", research on the "distant cousins" of pleasure and desire show that reward is a key element in creating both of these states. Studies showed that a chemical called dopamine is the brain's "pleasure chemical". Research also shows that the orbitofrontal cortex has connections to both the opioid and dopamine systems, and stimulating this cortex is associated with subjective reports of pleasure.^[10]”

This article describes the relationship between dependency and the brain and an object. It further goes on to say that some theories state that desire arises from a scientific bodily need, rather than it coming from an emotional place. This is such an interesting concept, the fact that desire, something so closely related with an emotional want or need, might actually be based on a chemical reaction in our brain. I also thought it was so interesting that it arises from bodily structures, so our desire isn’t anything to do with emotional needs, but rather with a part of our body being in need of a specific solution. This almost made me think that desire is a survival instinct, our body’s efforts to keep us alive and sustain us.