Positive Neuroscience

A white paper prepared for the John Templeton Foundation by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley February 2019 Positive Neuroscience Written by Summer Allen, Ph.D. ggsc.berkeley.edu greatergood.berkeley.edu Positive Neuroscience EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Showing care and affection to our loved ones, acting compassionately toward others who are suffering, being moved by an emotional song, and being resilient in the face of stressful situations—these feelings and behaviors are all crucial parts of being human and living a good life. But where do they come from? How do our brains help foster our capacity to flourish in the face of adversity, show kindness to those in despair, and enjoy life to the fullest? An emerging field of study—positive neuroscience—aims to answer these questions. Positive neuroscience focuses on the nervous system mechanisms that underlie human flourishing and well-being. This emerging field of study was significantly bolstered by the John Templeton Founda- tion’s $5.8 million Positive Neuroscience Project, an initiative led by Martin E.P. Seligman. The project included the Templeton Positive Neuroscience Awards competition, which awarded funding to 15 groups conducting research at the intersection of neuroscience and positive psychology. This white paper focuses on the research that has emanated from these awards. In particular, it discusses the neuroscience of social attachment and relationships (“the social brain”), compassion and generosity (“the compassionate brain”), musical talent and musical appreciation (“the musical brain”), and emotional regulation and resiliency (“the resilient brain”). The Social Brain abilities to form attachments to other people? Humans are social animals, and with good reason: Addressing this question typically involves Relationships are key to our happiness and looking at our earliest attachments in life: health—and to our survival. Is our social nature Decades of studies on rodents and non-human rooted at least in part in our neurobiology? And primates have identified several hormones and if so, what biological mechanisms underlie our brain regions that are likely involved in forming Executive Summary 2 and maintaining the bonds between parents A relatively new line of research has focused and children. Indeed, research suggests that on the “social touch” system—a touch pathway the human brain is wired for parental care. For that is particularly sensitive to touch that feels example, human neuroimaging studies have pleasant and which is often involved in social found that there are unique patterns of brain interactions. Remarkably, studies have found activity that respond to baby cries and photos of that the same brain areas that responded when children. These include brain areas known to be people had their arms touched softly at a pleasant involved in empathy and reward. speed also responded when those people viewed Other studies suggest that becoming a parent other people receiving a similar touch—suggest- changes the brain’s structure and function. In ing that this may be a form of “neural empathy” addition, there seem to be brain activity differenc- that helps us to interpret the relationships and es between more and less sensitive mothers and alliances among people in our proximity. more and less involved fathers. Intriguingly, some work suggests that parental brain activity when The Compassionate Brain children are babies may influence children’s later We tend to think that “human nature” is social and emotional abilities. For example, in one synonymous with violence, selfishness, and study, fathers who had more positive thoughts aggression—and that those behaviors are our about parenting their one-month-old—and great- evolutionary and biological legacy. But in recent er brain activation in response to their child’s cries years, neuroscience research actually suggests a in regions associated with sensory information more complicated story. processing and parental motivation—also had Studies of the brain have identified a neurobi- toddlers with better socio-emotional skills, such ological basis to compassion and generosity. They as empathy and positive peer relations. have identified areas of the brain associated with Many of the same mechanisms that are kind, helpful—or “prosocial”— thoughts, feelings, involved in these early bonds—including and behaviors. For example, one recent neuroim- hormones, brain circuits, and synced behav- aging study found that the brain circuits involved ior and neural responses—also underlie other in two gut-level responses to seeing people suffer- relationships. For example, one study found that ing—distress and tenderness—could be dissociat- both maternal and romantic love activated some ed from one another, and that activity in either one of the same areas of the brain’s reward system; could predict charitable behavior. Another line of another study found that romantic partners research demonstrates that people’s brains assign displayed more synchronized behavior and an inherent “value” to generosity and fairness: brain responses than did strangers—mecha- We experience vicarious rewards when we view nisms that are also thought to be involved in the others benefiting. parent-child bond. This suggests these biological Other research has examined activity in the mechanisms play a central role in our relation- brains of so-called “extraordinary altruists”— ships, across stages of life. people who have voluntarily donated a kidney Executive Summary 3 to a total stranger. Studies have found that these nary musical abilities of two unique populations: people have exceptionally strong neural responses people with absolute (or “perfect”) pitch—who to fearful faces, suggesting that they are especially can identify musical pitches without a refer- attuned to the suffering of others. ence—and people with sound-color synes- Through neuroscience studies, researchers have thesia—for whom hearing particular musical also identified a number of factors that seem likely sounds triggers perception of colors. to increase or decrease compassion and generosi- Additionally, other research suggests that ty such as how we perceive other people, whether hyperconnectivity may also underlie people’s we’re primed to think of ourselves as individuals or aesthetic responses to music. In one study, people as part of a group, and how much we care about who experienced chills while listening to music similarities between ourselves and other people. had thicker white fiber bundles connecting their There is also some evidence to suggest that stress— brain’s auditory areas to brain areas involved in either felt personally or “caught” from someone social and emotional processing and reward. else—may inspire prosocial behavior. Additionally, because similar brain areas are Evidence also suggests that compassion is involved in our emotional responses to music a skill that can be practiced and improved. For and experiences of empathy, this may suggest that example, one study found that two weeks of daily these two experiences are related in some way. compassion training increased activity in brain regions involved in emotion regulation and The Resilient Brain social cognition. Participants who completed We are constantly barraged with stimuli and this training also gave more money to someone situations that can evoke emotion. Walking who had been snubbed in a previous round of a down a city street, we may see people hugging money distribution game than participants who (or fighting), hear a baby crying, smell food completed memory training did. that reminds us of our childhood, and receive a text with sad news—all within a few seconds. The Musical Brain Over the past few decades, neuroscientists have Making and enjoying music is an essential compo- published hundreds of studies exploring how our nent of human cultures across the globe. Yet brains respond to emotional stimuli and how we despite its longstanding importance to humanity, can improve our ability to thrive in the face of researchers have only recently started to under- stressful situations. stand how the brain allows us to produce, under- Neuroimaging studies have found that a part stand, and appreciate music. This emerging line of the brain’s limbic system called the amygdala of neuroscience research has started to produce responds to both positive and negative emotion- valuable insights into humans’ relationship to music. al stimuli. However, people vary in the extent In particular, studies have found that brain to which their amygdalae respond to different “hyperconnectivity”—that is, increased struc- stimuli. For example, one study found that the tural and/or functional connectivity between amygdalae of happier participants responded specific brain regions—underlies the extraordi- more to positive images than the amygdalae of Executive Summary 4 less happy people, but there was no relation- Besides cognitive reappraisal, research ship between people’s happiness levels and their also suggests that certain forms of meditation amygdala responses to negative images. These can improve mood and change how the brain results suggest that happier people are more responds to emotional stimuli. For example, one motivated to see opportunities in their environ- study found that short-term mindfulness training ments, but that they don’t wear “rose-colored increased the functional connectivity between the glasses” that prevent their brains from recogniz- amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ing nearby negative

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