In 1954, the psychologist James Olds made a few ordinary rats the happiest rodents that had ever lived. He had directly wired an electrode into the rats’ brains, plugging into the septal area, which he believed might have something to do with the experience of pleasure. When he passed a small electric current through the electrode, the rats seemed to enjoy the experience. If he buzzed the rats only when they were in a particular place, they’d keep returning there, as if they were asking politely for him to do it again. So he tried handing over control of the experiment to the rats themselves. Olds gave them a lever: when pushed, it would turn on the electrode. The rats quickly learned how it worked, and they had a fantastic time with it. Some of the rats would giddily push the lever 2,000 times per hour for 24 hours straight. They also lost all interest in food, or sleep, or sex, or any other more mundane ratty pleasures. And not long afterwards, they died, starving and sleep-deprived and in absolute transcendent bliss. Olds was happy with his experiment. The results, he wrote, could ‘very likely be generalised eventually to human beings – with modifications, of course’.
Of course, human beings are not like rats. We demand slightly more out of life. But Olds got his wish: we tried the same thing on ourselves. Later in the 20th century, direct brain stimulation was explored as a way of treating pain without the need for any messy, dangerous drugs. So in 1986, a woman who had been living with chronic pain for more than a decade was fitted with a brain electrode. An article in the magnificently named scientific journal Pain describes what happened next. ‘The patient self-stimulated throughout the day, neglecting personal hygiene and family commitments.
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