# Is it possible for someone not to experience any pleasure in the brain (not depression)?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-someone-not-to-experience-any-pleasure-in-the-brain-not-depression/817386
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 6, 2018, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-someone-not-to-experience-any-pleasure-in-the-brain-not-depression/817386 "2018-07-06T13:58:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@EricaRoche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EricaRoche)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2018, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-someone-not-to-experience-any-pleasure-in-the-brain-not-depression/817386/1 "2018-07-06T13:58:52Z")
I know the first thing that would spring up to mind is depression but that seems to be a reduced sensation of pleasure from the people I’ve talked to with many emotions still present but almost “muddied”.
I mean a lack of pleasure in the sense that food, sex, warmth, or recreational drugs wouldn’t trigger any ‘noticeable difference’ or non at all. (oppositely like having a random itch that that goes away as opposed to a concrete throbbing sensation of pain).
Is there a reason why a genetic mutation couldn’t cause that? Is physical and emotional pleasure as necessary from an evolutionary perspective as negative emotions and pain?
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2018, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-someone-not-to-experience-any-pleasure-in-the-brain-not-depression/817386/2 "2018-07-06T14:48:52Z")
> **[Anhedonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhedonia)**
>
> Anhedonia is a diverse array of deficits in hedonic function, including reduced motivation or ability to experience pleasure. While earlier definitions emphasized the inability to experience pleasure, anhedonia is currently used by researchers to refer to reduced motivation, reduced anticipatory pleasure (wanting), reduced consummatory pleasure (liking), and deficits in reinforcement learning. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), anhedon While anh...
There’s at least one gene that has been found to have some association with anhedonia.
> [@EricaRoche](#):
>
> Is physical and emotional pleasure as necessary from an evolutionary perspective as negative emotions and pain?
Pain motivates behaviors that mitigate immediate risks to life - but pleasure (not just the absence of pain) motivates important behaviors, too. Emotional pleasure motivates socialization, which strengthens social bonds that may increase probability of survival of oneself and one’s offspring. Emotional pleasure associated with victory also motivates healthy males to win in pre-mating dominance contests, which increases probability of sexual access to the female of the species - and physical pleasure motivates mating, which enhances the probability of propagating one’s genes to the next generation.