"Happiness" has two aspects: a temporary "happiness feeling" that you feel when you get what you want, and a long-term "happiness" that makes you feel happy.It is known that these two influence each other, such that people with high happiness tend to feel happiness in their daily lives, and the more happiness they feel in their daily lives, the higher their happiness.However, the physiological basis on which these two aspects are related was unknown.
A joint research group of Professor Norihiro Sadato, Assistant Professor Kouhiko Koike, Assistant Professor Eri Nakagawa, and Lecturer Masahiro Matsunaga of Aichi Medical University, who were paying attention to the relationship between happiness and the brain. Tried to structurally and functionally analyze regions of the brain related to happiness using a magnetic resonance imaging device (MRI).Specifically, we asked participants to think of positive events, negative events, emotionally neutral events, etc. in MRI, and investigated the brain regions that are activated in relation to happiness.
As a result, the higher the "happiness", the larger the volume of the "rostral anterior cingulate gyrus", which is one area of the medial prefrontal cortex, and the higher the degree of "happiness feeling" felt when imagining a positive event. It turned out that the more people there are, the greater the activity in this part.The activity of the rostral anterior cingulate gyrus when imagining a more positive event is related to its size. It is easy to feel. "The two aspects of happiness have a common neural basis, and "happiness" is related to its volume, and "happiness feeling" is related to neural activity when imagining a positive event.
Regarding the results of this research, the research group said, "Recent research has shown that the more you train your brain as well as your muscles, the larger the volume of a specific brain region. It can be said that training has shown the possibility of strengthening the feeling of well-being. "
