Physiology

The primary or purely physiological form of pleasure is, strangely, not of much interest to physiologists. Textbooks of general physiology prefer to ignore the subject of pleasure. It gets only passing reference in neurophysiology texts. Why do physiologists find pleasure uninteresting? Is it because they think it too subjective to merit serious attention - and better left to the attention of psychologists?
There are half-hearted attempts to explain primary pleasure through neural mechanisms, such as through the action of specific neurotransmitters. One explanation suggests that the action of the neurotransmitter dopamine acting in the area of the brain called the 'ventral tegmental area' mediates the enjoyment of things such as eating chocolates. This and other similar explanations offer little promise, so far, in advancing our understanding of brain mechanisms that lead to pleasure.
Functional imaging studies of the brain make claims for different patterns of activation associated with pleasure. But their explanations are not convincing, mainly because they are guilty of positing as causes or explanations brain changes that are only associations of some specific sensations. The difficulty is in connecting activation of brain areas with subjective experiences and in figuring out whether the changes seen are cause or effect.

Anatomists are braver than physiologists when it comes to studying pleasure and the brain.
