psychiatrists at Columbia University who treated Adam discovered the answer in scans of his brain. The oxygen deprivation during his drug overdose had left Adam with lesions in the brain’s reward system. Adam’s case, reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry, is extraordinary because of the dramatic change from addict to absolute loss of “I want.” But there are many other cases of people who lose desire and the ability to expect happiness. Psychologists call it anhedonia—literally, “without pleasure.” People with anhedonia describe life as a series of habits with no expectation of
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