This article is transferred from | China Biotechnology Network
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As the saying goes, disasters are not alone. This seems to be a law, that when the first bad thing happens, a series of bad things happen one after another. Some people even describe it as "even drinking cold water will stuff your teeth". Usually, this series of events is mostly considered to be "things are not going well", or bad luck.
Because the neurodynamics of responding to what is defined as "bad things" are related to instantaneous emotional experiences, the duration of negative emotions also varies between individuals: some people will easily jump out of the first bad experience and return to normalcy, avoiding the subsequent succession of "things not going well"; others will be trapped in the first event for a long time, making it more difficult to get rid of "things not going well".
On March 23, Beijing time, a new study published in the journal of neuroscience, a research team led by the University of Miami in the United States identified some of the reasons behind the long-term negative emotions, indicating that the longer the negative emotions stay in the brain, the less happy people are; unhappiness is the cause of "things not going well", and it is also the result of the experience after "things don't go well".
For example: when you just want to bring a cup of fragrant hot coffee to your mouth in the morning, you don't hold it steadily, only to hear a "pop", and then look at it again, and your beloved coffee cup has fallen to pieces and splashed everywhere... At this time, a good colleague has just entered the office and is smiling and greeting you. I ask, will you respond with a smile at this time? [1] And in the next day's work, will you still work with the emotion of the "spilling coffee incident"? [2] And can the work performance still be ideal? [3] (Summarized at the end of the article)
Researchers believe that how a person's brain evaluates transient negative stimuli, such as a coffee spill, may affect their long-term mental health.
Study lead author Nikki Puccetti, a phD student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami, said: "We can think that the longer your brain holds on to negative events or stimuli, the more unhappy you are." Basically, we found that the persistence of negative stimuli in a person's brain predicts more negative and fewer positive emotional experiences in everyday life. This, in turn, is a harbinger of how the individual behaves in everyday life. ”
Most human neurobiology research focuses primarily on how well the brain responds to negative stimuli, rather than how long it lasts. The new study focuses on spillover effects, how the emotional color of one event spills over to something else. Understanding the biological mechanisms of this phenomenon is critical to understanding differences in brain function, everyday mood, and well-being.
In the new study, the researchers focused on how the brain's different responses to mood pictures relate to short-lived emotional experiences in everyday life, and even long-term mental health. They speculate that the amygdala on both sides of the brain plays an important role in assessing stimuli, mood and memory.
The amygdala attaches to the end of the hippocampus and is almond-shaped and part of the limbic system. From an evolutionary perspective, the amygdala can be thought of as a neural mass about emotional memory, with the function of judging exogenous input information, judging at the fastest speed whether the information is dangerous or safe, and then making an immediate emotional or physical response. The information that is judged to be safe can be relaxed; conversely, the reaction of confrontation or flight can be made.
The researchers confirmed their suspicions by analyzing data from the Midus Study on the Physical and Mental Health of Middle-Aged Americans. The MIDUS study, a longitudinal study that began in the 1990s, has collected data on the physical and mental health of thousands of middle-aged Americans, including measurements of their mental health.
Together with other researchers from the Midus project, the researchers analyzed data from 52 midus participants (67 percent of whom were women). The participants completed a questionnaire on mental health and reported on the nightly phone calls they experienced stressful events and positive and negative emotions each day for about a week. In addition, the participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) scans, which the researchers measured and mapped their brain activity as they viewed 60 positive emotion images and 60 negative emotion images, interspersed with 60 images of neutral facial expressions.
When data from questionnaires, daily telephone follow-up records, and functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were linked, the researchers found that people with a shorter duration of negative stimuli on the left amygdala were more likely to show more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions in their daily lives, and that these emotions led to a more lasting sense of well-being over time.
Conversely, people who responded more persistently to negative images in the left amygdala reported more negative emotions and fewer positive emotions in their daily lives.
The researchers believe that for people with higher amygdala persistence, negative emotions may be amplified or prolonged by self-instilling content that is not related to the negative event itself. The brain-behavioral link between the duration of the left amygdala and everyday emotions could help us understand a longer-lasting, longer-term sense of well-being.
Aaron Heller, a corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology, said: "This may explain why some people may let a cup of coffee that falls on the ground ruin their whole day, while some people don't think about it anymore after cleaning up the mess." The former may show longer persistence, which may tell us why some people are more likely to develop mental disorders. ”
The researchers hope to one day repeat the study for non-midus participants who were at high risk of depression or anxiety.
* Speaking of the "spilled coffee" example above, if you clean up the mess on the ground in time, focus on your work today, or on other things, even if it is a joke with colleagues about "broken peace". Although the coffee does not go into your stomach, isn't the whole office still full of fragrance? Therefore, do not let yourself get deeper and deeper because of a small matter, things have already happened, you must adjust your emotions and look at the problem in time, you will not continue to ferment in the next [1],[2][3] events, so as to let yourself fall into a vicious circle of "everything is not going well".
Thesis Link:
https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.1637-20.2021