Describe the experiments performed by James Olds and Peter Milner. What were they trying to do? What did they discover?

What will be an ideal response?

James Olds and Peter Milner (1954) wanted to test whether stimulation of a certain brain area might influence which direction a rat turns. When they implanted their electrode, they missed the intended target and instead hit an area called the septum. To their surprise, when the rat received the brain stimulation, it sat up, looked around, and sniffed, as if reacting to a favorable stimulus. Olds and Milner then gave rats the opportunity to press a lever to produce electrical self-stimulation of the brain. Later researchers found that rats would work to stimulate many brain areas with axons that directly or indirectly increase the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. Therefore, an accidental experiment drew attention to the role of dopamine in reinforcing behaviors.