The neural correlates of happiness: A review of PET and fMRI studies using autobiographical recall methods

Abstract

Although very difficult to define, happiness is becoming a core concept within contemporary psychology and affective neuroscience. In the last two decades, the increased use of neuroimaging techniques has facilitated empirical study of the neural correlates of happiness. This area of research utilizes procedures that induce positive emotion and mood, and autobiographical recall is one of the most widely used and effective approaches. In this article, we review eight positron emission tomography and seven functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that have investigated happiness by using autobiographical recall to induce emotion. Regardless of the neuroimaging technique used, the studies conducted so far have shown that remembering happy events is primarily associated with the activation of many areas, including anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, and insula. Importantly, these areas are also found to be connected with other basic emotions, such as sadness and anger. In the conclusion, we integrate these findings, discussing important limitations of the extant literature and suggesting new research directions.Keywords Happiness . Autobiographical recall . PET . fMRI . Mood induction methodsDefining happiness is a difficult task for natural and social scientists, including psychologists, economists, sociologists, geneticists, and neuroscientists. Indeed, happiness is a term often used to refer to and that is interchangeable with many other concepts, such as well-being, flourishing, optimal functioning, life satisfaction, quality of life, and health

Discrimination of Genuine and Acted Emotional Expressions Using EEG Signal and Machine Learning

“…Our findings agree with the results obtained from the previous emotion studies that highlighted the associations of specific neural patterns with different emotions [22], [13], [41]. This is also inline with previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) studies, which demonstrated that remembering happy events is primarily associated with the activation of many areas, including anterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex [42].…”

Functional neural substrates of football fanaticism: Different pattern of brain responses and connectivity in fanatics

“…17,19,20 The increased activity in the ACC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and insula in our study may also be related to invoking emotional memories from the past (since all goals were from previous matches), as it was also shown that remembering emotional events was associated with activation in the ACC, insula, and prefrontal cortex. 21 According to Keenan and coworkers, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is likely to be involved in the memory of information that is personally meaningful. 22 This may explain the co-activation of the right MFG, SFG, and IFG in addition to the dACC in our study.…”

Persistent Valence Representations by Ensembles of Anterior Cingulate Cortex Neurons

“…Most laboratory tasks are motivated by either pleasure or pain and as such are endowed with motivational valence. Human imaging studies have shown that the medial frontal cortex (MFC) including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is activated during the experience of pain, fear and sadness (Peterson, 1986 ; Kulkarni et al, 2005 ; Wiech and Tracey, 2009 ; Etkin et al, 2011 ; Shackman et al, 2011 ; Yoshino et al, 2013 ; Palermo et al, 2015 ; Wagner et al, 2015 ; Fullana et al, 2016 ) as well as by the experience of pleasure or happiness (Rolls et al, 2003 ; Lindgren et al, 2012 ; Matsunaga et al, 2016 ; Suardi et al, 2016 ). At the cellular level, MFC/ACC neurons respond robustly to cues that predict aversive outcomes.…”