Contributions of Philip Teitelbaum to affective neuroscience

Abstract

As part of a festschrift issue for Philip Teitelbaum, I offer here the thesis that Teitelbaum deserves to be viewed as an important forefather to the contemporary field of affective neuroscience (which studies motivation, emotion and affect in the brain). Teitelbaum's groundbreaking analyses of motivation deficits induced by lateral hypothalamic damage, of roles of food palatability in revealing residual function, and of recovery of 'lost' functions helped shape modern understanding of how motivation circuits operate within the brain. His redefinition of the minimum requirement for identifying motivation raised the conceptual bar for thinking about the topic among behavioral neuroscientists. His meticulous analyses of patterned stages induced by brain manipulations, life development and clinical disorders added new dimensions to our appreciation of how brain systems work. His steadfast highlighting of integrative functions and behavioral complexity helped provide a healthy functionalist counterbalance to reductionist trends in science of the late 20th century. In short, Philip Teitelbaum can be seen to have made remarkable contributions to several domains of psychology and neuroscience, including affective neuroscience.

Fig. 1

Stages of recovery of function after lateral hypothalamic lesions. Redrawn from Figure 3 of 1962 review article by Teitelbaum and Epstein [79].

Fig. 2

Brain systems for ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ rewards. Hedonic hotspots and hedonic circuits. Hedonic hotspots are shown in nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, and brainstem parabrachial nucleus where opioid or other signals cause amplification of core “liking” reactions to sweetness. Pleasure causation circuits for ‘liking’ generation are in red. Additional ‘liking’ coding circuits are in orange. ‘Wanting’ generation circuits involving mesolimbic dopamine are in green. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article). Reprinted by permission from [63].

Fig. 3

Taste “liking” reactions and detail map of nucleus accumbens hotspot. Facial expressions of a rat, orangutan and human infant to sweet taste of sucrose and to bitter taste of quinine. Only a cubic-millimeter sized hedonic hotspot generates pleasure (red/orange). There increases in ‘liking’ for sweetness are generated by microinjections of a droplet containing drug to stimulates mu opioid receptors. By contrast, increases in ‘wanting’ to eat more food are generated by opioid microinjections throughout the entire nucleus accumbens and in related outside structures (‘wanting’ can also be stimulated by dopamine in the same structures). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article). Based on [48,63,66].