It’s often said that there are no such thing as negative emotions as it’s how we work with and act on our feelings that really counts. However, this isn’t the kind of logic that’s likely to hit home with anyone that has a somewhat relentless problem with pessimism, as when an individual cannot see the bright side or potential in anything, they’re hardly best-equipped to be proactive with their own thoughts and actions.
However, we could be heading for era in which pessimism on a rather debilitating level could to some extent be controlled and perhaps alleviated. Earlier this week, researchers from the University College London reported their discovery of a small region of the brain which they believe is indeed it’s pessimism center – as in the part that’s responsible for feelings of pessimism, low motivation and a general tendency to think only of the bad things in life and never the good.
According to the team carrying out the study, the half-pea-sized human habenula plays a role in the prediction of negative events, which the researchers likened to the triggering of electric shocks. The habenula apparently learns from bad experiences and can to some extent influence future decisions and predictions – those with overactive habenulas therefore may be pre-programmed to assume that the worst outcome will always be the most probable.
The project involved the examination and analysis of 23 brains from generally healthy adults, in order to monitor the way in which their habenulas responded when the individual was presented with a photograph in some way connected with an electric shock, compared to its dormancy when photographs were shown of individuals winning money. Prior to this study, animal tests brought to light data suggesting that the habenula plays a direct role in the limiting of dopamine production – the chemical known to be responsible for motivation.
Generally speak, the habenula fires up and kicks into action either when an individual is faced with a negative situation or at least expects something bad to happen.
“The habenula tracks our experiences, responding more the worse something is expected to be,” wrote Dr Jonathan Roiser, the project’s lead author.
“For example, the habenula responds much more strongly when an electric shock is almost certain than when it is unlikely,”
“In this study we showed that the habenula doesn’t just express whether something leads to negative events or not; it signals quite how much bad outcomes are expected.”
Co-Author Dr Rebecca Lawson from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience insisted that the results of the tests prove that there is a direct link between habenula and motivation.
“This demonstrates a crucial link between the habenula and motivated behaviour, which may be the result of dopamine suppression,” she added.
In terms of future application, the research remains relatively remedial in nature but could eventually be used to both detect and treat hyperactive habenula conditions that may be having a severely detrimental effect on the individual’s health and wellbeing.