Happiness happens in brain

A few people remain happy even with limited resources while others don’t enjoy even with all the facilities and wealth.

Sato and his team located the relationship between happiness and the precuneus by running a group of research participants through a series of surveys and MRI brain scans. The secret may lie in having more gray matter mass in a brain region, according to a new research. For instance, a few feel happiness more intensely than others when they receive compliments.

Many have attempted to find the key to happiness, its meaning, or its ultimate source.

EurekAlert reported on Nov 20, that Sato and his team believe that overall happiness is a culmination of brief happy feelings coming together with a greater satisfaction with life.

Doctors are still unclear what the neural mechanism behind happiness occurring is though.

As it’s known and often witnessed, the researchers also proved that happiness varies from one person to another.

A team of scientists at Kyoto University have found the neurological answer to this question. This region of the brain lights up, under brain scans, when someone feels “happiness”.

“I’m very happy that we now know more about what it means to be happy”, he said.

Analysis also indicated that the same area had an association with the combined positive and negative emotional intensity and life satisfaction. Understanding that mechanism, according to Sato, will be a huge asset for quantifying levels of happiness objectively.

“Several research have proven that meditation will increase grey matter mass within the precuneus”. This has suggested that mostly, people who feel happy emotions more intensely, are more satisfied with their lives, and don’t feel sad as easily, have a larger precuneus. “Our results show that structural neuroimaging may serve as a complementary objective measure of subjective happiness”, said the authors on the study. Mr. Sato used MRI to observe how happiness is reflected when conscious. “This new insight on where happiness happens in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programmes based on scientific research”. The individuals then took a survey that requested how joyful they’re usually, how intensely they really feel feelings, and the way glad they’re with their lives.