Happiness may be the most important feeling in our lives, if our endless pursuit of it is any indication. However, from neurological perspective, people, who are happy, have a large precuneus, a new study suggests. “This new insight on where happiness happens in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programs based on scientific research”. Also found in the study is that people with larger precuneus tend to feel sadness less intensely and feel happiness more intensely.
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The definition of happiness has been debated for centuries. But where does happiness exist in the brain?
“Psychological studies have shown that subjective happiness can be measured reliably and consists of emotional and cognitive components”.
Sato and team reached their conclusions following a series of interviews and MRI scans of 51 participants to pin down a basis for happiness.
A team of Japanese scientists has determined that the amount of grey matter within the precuneus – a portion of the brain at the upper rear of the right cerebral hemisphere – determines how happy a person is. They then had the participants answer three common questionnaires: the Subjective Happiness Scale, a four-item measure of global subjective happiness; the Emotional Intensity Scale, which assesses the intensity of positive and negative emotions; and the goal in Life Test.
What is more, the researchers found that one’s happiness may be driven by a combination of greater life satisfaction and intensity of positive emotion – supporting the theory of subjective well-being.
“Previous structural neuroimaging studies have shown that training in psychological activities, such as meditation, changed the structure of the precuneus gray matter”, wrote the authors. By doing the MRI scans first, there’s a chance they may have influenced the level of happiness the subjects reported.
While many will argue that happiness is more the latter, a new study suggests that it might actually be a matter of physiology.
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The findings aren’t necessarily surprising, as the authors noted that prior research has hinted at a connection between happy emotional states and the medial parietal cortex.
