A new study by Wataru Sato and his team at Kyoto University in Japan published in the journal Scientific Reports claims to have found the key to happiness, which is an area in the brain called the precuneus.
The study led by Wataru Sato found out that happy emotions and satisfaction in life lie in having more grey matter in a region of the brain calle precuneus, which is a part in the medial parietal lobe.
"Several studies have shown that meditation increases grey matter mass in the precuneus," said Wataru Sato (via Eurekalert), lead author of the study about the key to happiness. "This new insight on where happiness happens in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programs based on scientific research."
The study took into account the brains of participants scanned using Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI. The participants were then surveyed to assess their general levels of happiness, their life satisfaction and their intensity of feeling emotions. Those who scored high in the happiness survey have brain scans that revealed a greater mass of grey matter in the precuneus. Also found in the study is that people with larger precuneus tend to feel sadness less intensely and feel happiness more intensely.
"Our results show that structural neuroimaging may serve as a complementary objective measure of subjective happiness," the authors noted.
The region in the brain called precuneus, according to the results of the new study, becomes energetic when experiencing consciousness. Thus people with larger precuneus tend to have higher emotional intensity and tend to feel more happiness. The reason the precuneus is larger, according to Wataru Sato and his team, is because it has more circulation of neurons.
"Over history, many eminent scholars like Aristotle have contemplated what happiness is," Sato said. "I'm very happy that we now know more about what it means to be happy."
