Most people want to feel like Pharrell Williams on a daily basis: Happy, and like a room without a roof (whatever that means). Of course, wanting happiness and achieving it are two very different things, but a new study out of Japan may hold the key, as they have tied a specific brain structure to happiness.
The research, conducted by a team from Kyoto University, has concluded that happiness comes from a combination of factors verging on a brain structure known as the precuneus—a part of the brain found in the medial parietal lobe, which has previously been associated with consciousness and sense of self.
These factors were life satisfaction and emotional happiness—which psychologists have linked together before to define the experience of being happy. The exact neural mechanism, however, has been unclear—but understanding it would go a long way toward both objectively studying happiness and increasing it.
Finding the “happy lobe”
And so, the researchers scanned the brains of 51 participants via MRI. The same participants also answered a survey regarding their general happiness, the intensity of their emotions, and level of satisfaction with their lives.
As reported in Scientific Reports, those who scored higher on happiness the survey showed more grey matter mass in the precuneus—meaning those who felt happiness more intensely, sadness less intensely, and were more able to find meaning in their lives had a larger precuneus.
“Over history, many eminent scholars like Aristotle have contemplated what happiness is,” said lead author Wataru Sato in a statement. “I’m very happy that we now know more about what it means to be happy.”
“Several studies have shown that meditation increases grey matter mass in the precuneus,” he added. “This new insight on where happiness happens in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programs based on scientific research.”
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Image credit: Thinkstock
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