Neural Electrical Correlates of Subjective Happiness

Abstract

Happiness is a subjective experience that can serve as the ultimate goal for humans. A recent study that employed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reported that spontaneous fluctuation (fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation: fALFF) in the precuneus is negatively associated with subjective happiness. However, little is known about the neural electrical correlates of subjective happiness, which can provide direct evidence of neural activity and insights regarding the underlying psychological, cellular, and neurotransmitter mechanisms. Therefore, we measured 400-channel whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) during resting state in participants whose subjective happiness was evaluated using questionnaires. We conducted source reconstruction analysis utilizing bandpass-filtered MEG data and analyzed the fALFF of the band-limited power time series as an index of spontaneous neural fluctuation. Gamma-band fALFF values in the right precuneus were negatively associated with subjective happiness scores (partial correlation coefficient = −0.56). These findings indicate that subjective happiness has a neural electrical correlate of reduced spontaneous fluctuation of gamma-band neuronal oscillations in the right precuneus, and that it could be mediated by a reduction in wandering, clinging self-consciousness through heightened N-methyl-d-aspartate-dependent gamma-aminobutyric acid-ergic parvalbumin inhibitory interneuron activity.