James Olds became a prominent figure in physiological psychology when he discovered, in 1953, that rats could be trained to perform a variety of experimental tasks, some at very high rates, in order to obtain a pleasurable electrical stimulus applied to a discrete central nervous system site. This procedure, often called self-stimulation or intracranial self-stimulation, is intimately related to the brain pathways that mediate positive reinforcement. At the time of his sudden death, Olds was Bing Professor of Behavioral Biology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The events leading up to the serendipitous discovery of pleasure centers in the brain were described both by Olds (1973b, 1975a, 1977) and others (Miller, 1980; Milner, 1989).

Early Life

Olds was born in Northbrook, Illinois, where his father, Leland, was industrial editor for the Federated Press. The family moved in...