Abstract
The majority of people throughout the world rate subjective happiness as the top of the important thing in life. A recent structural neuroimaging study exploring neurocognitive mechanisms underlying subjective happiness has suggested that the gray matter volume of the right precuneus is associated with Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) scores. However, how the neural activity in this region, as well as the neural functional coupling between this and other regions, could be related to SHS scores remains unclear. To investigate these issues, we performed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and analyzed the fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) in participants, whose subjective happiness was evaluated using the SHS. Lower fALFF values in the right precuneus were associated with higher SHS scores. Furthermore, functional connectivity and spectral dynamic causal modeling analyses showed that both functional and effective connectivity of the right precuneus with the right amygdala were positively associated with SHS scores. These findings, together with other evidence on the information-processing functions of these brain regions, suggest the possibility that subjective happiness is associated with a reduction in self-referential mental processes, which are well integrated with emotional processing.
Highlights
International surveys have found that happiness is rated as the top of the most important thing in life by the majority of people throughout the world[1]
The following considerations suggest that the amygdala may be one of the brain regions that send emotional information to the precuneus: (1) ample neuroscientific evidence has indicated that the amygdala is involved in the emotional processing of environmental stimuli, such as evaluations of the emotional significance of stimuli[26,27]; (2) anatomical studies in monkeys showed that the amygdala sends direct projections to the medial parietal region[25,28]; and (3) several previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies found reduced resting-state functional connectivity between the precuneus and amygdala in depressed patients[29,30,31]
To identify the spontaneous brain activity associated with Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) scores, fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) was analyzed using a voxel-wise multiple regression analysis with family-wise error- (FWE-) correction for the whole brain, treating SHS scores as the independent variable and sex, age, full-scale intelligence quotient (IQ), and framewise displacement (FD)[35] as covariates
Summary
International surveys have found that happiness is rated as the top of the most important thing in life by the majority of people throughout the world[1]. The following considerations suggest that the amygdala may be one of the brain regions that send emotional information to the precuneus: (1) ample neuroscientific evidence has indicated that the amygdala is involved in the emotional processing of environmental stimuli, such as evaluations of the emotional significance of stimuli[26,27]; (2) anatomical studies in monkeys showed that the amygdala sends direct projections to the medial parietal region[25,28]; and (3) several previous fMRI studies found reduced resting-state functional connectivity between the precuneus and amygdala in depressed patients[29,30,31] Based on these data, we hypothesized that higher SHS scores would be associated with stronger positive functional connectivity between the precuneus and amygdala
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