Thus far we have considered drive states abstractly. We have discussed the ways in which they relate to other affective and motivational mechanisms, as well as their main biological purpose and general effects on thought and behavior. Yet, despite serving the same broader goals, different drive states are often remarkably different in terms of their specific properties. To understand some of these specific properties, we will explore two different drive states that play very important roles in determining behavior, and in ensuring human survival: hunger and sexual arousal.
Hunger
External cues, like the sight and smell of food, can ignite feelings of hunger. [Image: Marco Verch, https://goo.gl/c4TC5A, CC BY 2.0, https://goo.gl/BRvSA7]
Hunger is a classic example of a drive state, one that results in thoughts and behaviors related to the consumption of food. Hunger is generally triggered by low glucose levels in the blood (Rolls, 2000), and behaviors resulting from hunger aim to restore homeostasis regarding those glucose levels. Various other internal and external cues can also cause hunger. For example, when fats are broken down in the body for energy, this initiates a chemical cue that the body should search for food (Greenberg, Smith, & Gibbs, 1990). External cues include the time of day, estimated time until the next feeding (hunger increases immediately prior to food consumption), and the sight, smell, taste, and even touch of food and food-related stimuli. Note that while hunger is a generic feeling, it has nuances that can provoke the eating of specific foods that correct for nutritional imbalances we may not even be conscious of. For example, a couple who was lost adrift at sea found they inexplicably began to crave the eyes of fish. Only later, after they had been rescued, did they learn that fish eyes are rich in vitamin C—a very important nutrient that they had been depleted of while lost in the ocean (Walker, 2014).
The hypothalamus (located in the lower, central part of the brain) plays a very important role in eating behavior. It is responsible for synthesizing and secreting various hormones. The lateral hypothalamus (LH) is concerned largely with hunger and, in fact, lesions (i.e., damage) of the LH can eliminate the desire for eating entirely—to the point that animals starve themselves to death unless kept alive by force feeding (Anand & Brobeck, 1951). Additionally, artificially stimulating the LH, using electrical currents, can generate eating behavior if food is available (Andersson, 1951).
Activation of the LH can not only increase the desirability of food but can also reduce the desirability of nonfood-related items. For example, Brendl, Markman, and Messner (2003) found that participants who were given a handful of popcorn to trigger hunger not only had higher ratings of food products, but also had lower ratings of nonfood products—compared with participants whose appetites were not similarly primed. That is, because eating had become more important, other non-food products lost some of their value.
Hunger is only part of the story of when and why we eat. A related process, satiation, refers to the decline of hunger and the eventual termination of eating behavior. Whereas the feeling of hunger gets you to start eating, the feeling of satiation gets you to stop. Perhaps surprisingly, hunger and satiation are two distinct processes, controlled by different circuits in the brain and triggered by different cues. Distinct from the LH, which plays an important role in hunger, the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) plays an important role in satiety. Though lesions of the VMH can cause an animal to overeat to the point of obesity, the relationship between the LH and the VMB is quite complicated. Rats with VMH lesions can also be quite finicky about their food (Teitelbaum, 1955).
Other brain areas, besides the LH and VMH, also play important roles in eating behavior. The sensory cortices (visual, olfactory, and taste), for example, are important in identifying food items. These areas provide informational value, however, not hedonic evaluations. That is, these areas help tell a person what is good or safe to eat, but they don’t provide the pleasure (or hedonic) sensations that actually eating the food produces. While many sensory functions are roughly stable across different psychological states, other functions, such as the detection of food-related stimuli, are enhanced when the organism is in a hungry drive state.
After identifying a food item, the brain also needs to determine its reward value, which affects the organism’s motivation to consume the food. The reward value ascribed to a particular item is, not surprisingly, sensitive to the level of hunger experienced by the organism. The hungrier you are, the greater the reward value of the food. Neurons in the areas where reward values are processed, such as the orbitofrontal cortex, fire more rapidly at the sight or taste of food when the organism is hungry relative to if it is satiated.
Sexual Arousal
Unlike other drive states the mechanisms that trigger sexual arousal are not the same for men and women. [Image: Matthew Romack, https://goo.gl/IUbbk0, CC BY 2.0, https://goo.gl/BRvSA7]
A second drive state, especially critical to reproduction, is sexual arousal. Sexual arousal results in thoughts and behaviors related to sexual activity. As with hunger, it is generated by a large range of internal and external mechanisms that are triggered either after the extended absence of sexual activity or by the immediate presence and possibility of sexual activity (or by cues commonly associated with such possibilities). Unlike hunger, however, these mechanisms can differ substantially between males and females, indicating important evolutionary differences in the biological functions that sexual arousal serves for different sexes.
Sexual arousal and pleasure in males, for example, is strongly related to the preoptic area, a region in the anterior hypothalamus (or the front of the hypothalamus). If the preoptic area is damaged, male sexual behavior is severely impaired. For example, rats that have had prior sexual experiences will still seek out sexual partners after their preoptic area is lesioned. However, once having secured a sexual partner, rats with lesioned preoptic areas will show no further inclination to actually initiate sex.
For females, though, the preoptic area fulfills different roles, such as functions involved with eating behaviors. Instead, there is a different region of the brain, the ventromedial hypothalamus (the lower, central part) that plays a similar role for females as the preoptic area does for males. Neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamus determine the excretion of estradiol, an estrogen hormone that regulates sexual receptivity (or the willingness to accept a sexual partner). In many mammals, these neurons send impulses to the periaqueductal gray (a region in the midbrain) which is responsible for defensive behaviors, such as freezing immobility, running, increases in blood pressure, and other motor responses. Typically, these defensive responses might keep the female rat from interacting with the male one. However, during sexual arousal, these defensive responses are weakened and lordosis behavior, a physical sexual posture that serves as an invitation to mate, is initiated (Kow and Pfaff, 1998). Thus, while the preoptic area encourages males to engage in sexual activity, the ventromedial hypothalamus fulfills that role for females.
Other differences between males and females involve overlapping functions of neural modules. These neural modules often provide clues about the biological roles played by sexual arousal and sexual activity in males and females. Areas of the brain that are important for male sexuality overlap to a great extent with areas that are also associated with aggression. In contrast, areas important for female sexuality overlap extensively with those that are also connected to nurturance (Panksepp, 2004).
One region of the brain that seems to play an important role in sexual pleasure for both males and females is the septal nucleus, an area that receives reciprocal connections from many other brain regions, including the hypothalamus and the amygdala (a region of the brain primarily involved with emotions). This region shows considerable activity, in terms of rhythmic spiking, during sexual orgasm. It is also one of the brain regions that rats will most reliably voluntarily self-stimulate (Olds & Milner, 1954). In humans, placing a small amount of acetylcholine into this region, or stimulating it electrically, has been reported to produce a feeling of imminent orgasm (Heath, 1964).
Conclusion
Drive states are evolved motivational mechanisms designed to ensure that organisms take self-beneficial actions. In this module, we have reviewed key properties of drive states, such as homeostasis and the narrowing of attention. We have also discussed, in some detail, two important drive states—hunger and sexual arousal—and explored their underlying neurobiology and the ways in which various environmental and biological factors affect their properties.
There are many drive states besides hunger and sexual arousal that affect humans on a daily basis. Fear, thirst, exhaustion, exploratory and maternal drives, and drug cravings are all drive states that have been studied by researchers (see e.g., Buck, 1999; Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2003). Although these drive states share some of the properties discussed in this module, each also has unique features that allow it to effectively fulfill its evolutionary function.
One key difference between drive states is the extent to which they are triggered by internal as opposed to external stimuli. Thirst, for example, is induced both by decreased fluid levels and an increased concentration of salt in the body. Fear, on the other hand, is induced by perceived threats in the external environment. Drug cravings are triggered both by internal homeostatic mechanisms and by external visual, olfactory, and contextual cues. Other drive states, such as those pertaining to maternity, are triggered by specific events in the organism’s life. Differences such as these make the study of drive states a scientifically interesting and important endeavor. Drive states are rich in their diversity, and many questions involving their neurocognitive underpinnings, environmental determinants, and behavioral effects, have yet to be answered.
One final thing to consider, not discussed in this module, relates to the real-world consequences of drive states. Hunger, sexual arousal, and other drive states are all psychological mechanisms that have evolved gradually over millions of years. We share these drive states not only with our human ancestors but with other animals, such as monkeys, dogs, and rats. It is not surprising then that these drive states, at times, lead us to behave in ways that are ill-suited to our modern lives. Consider, for example, the obesity epidemic that is affecting countries around the world. Like other diseases of affluence, obesity is a product of drive states that are too easily fulfilled: homeostatic mechanisms that once worked well when food was scarce now backfire when meals rich in fat and sugar are readily available. Unrestricted sexual arousal can have similarly perverse effects on our well-being. Countless politicians have sacrificed their entire life’s work (not to mention their marriages) by indulging adulterous sexual impulses toward colleagues, staffers, sex workers, and others over whom they have social or financial power. It not an overstatement to say that many problems of the 21st century, from school massacres to obesity to drug addiction, are influenced by the mismatch between our drive states and our uniquely modern ability to fulfill them at a moment’s notice.
Drive States by Sudeep Bhatia and George Loewenstein is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available in our Licensing Agreement.
