Wants vs Needs

[one_raven]

My girlfriend's boss was at the Dalai Lama's house recently (no, really - they're friends) and they were having a discussion with some monks and neurology students about the differences between wants and needs.
The Dalai lama is a big fan of science, and tries to expose his monks to it as part of their training - he often has audience with students of different disciplines and fosters open two-way dialogue between them and the monks.

Anyway, the neurology students said that the place in the brain where wants come from is different than the place where needs come from.
Furthermore, they stated that the place where addiction comes from is the same place where needs come from.

Can someone here elaborate on this and provide me with some good links on the subject?
Thanks.

 

[one_raven]

Anyone?

 

[CharonZ]

I fear that the definitions might be a little bit off. I think you might refer to "want" as the circuit involving the area involved with rewards (revolving around the nucleus accumbens). This is for instance plays a central role for motivation as well as addictions.
"Need" is even less easier to define, I will assume that you mean areas that are involved in maintaining homeostasis. Here the hypothalamus plays an important role. Of course in reality it is a little bit more complicated as the mentioned ones are not the only structures involved in the given circuits.
Am I correct in my assumptions and do you have any specific questions? Otherwise, if you only need links maybe the two keywords are already sufficient...

 

[krstofer]

Hello.