Whether eating, taking drugs or drinking, engaging in sex, gambling, exercising, or doing good deeds, the pursuit of pleasure is a central drive of the human animal.

In this 2011 talk for the Mind Science Foundation, Dr. David Linden (The Johns Hopkins University) explains how recent research has enabled us to understand how pleasure affects us at the most fundamental level: in a section of the brain called the medial forebrain pleasure circuit, where pleasurable experiences are registered.