Brain stuff - Why do we feel sad?

I've always been intrigued by the way the brain works, why do we feel happy? What makes us feel sad? Why is it, that a simple smell can bring back a wave of emotions? And, while simple curiosity is my main reason for this post, I also find the notion of emotions being nothing more than mechanical/chemical changes of the brain somewhat comforting. I know, I’m a little odd. But seriously, take a minute to think about it, really think about it. It’s strange right. The idea that your mood essentially starts from a tiny electrical impulse. But sometimes after a really bad day, or when I start to get that nagging sad feeling, I can take comfort in this idea. I just take a moment to focus on why I’m feeling that way, completely remove myself from the external processes (although that can help too) and imagine the internal ones.

I find it funny that even at this moment, as you read this, chemicals in your body are transmitting from one neuron to the next to stimulate or inhibit certain areas of the brain. (1) Perhaps you’re feeling happy, so the ‘pleasure centres’ of your brain are being activated and releasing dopamine, an excitatory neurotransmitter. (2) Or maybe you’re just feeling painfully bored by this and the hormone melatonin is increasing (3), causing you to feel sleepy. See what I did there… technically it’s the hormone making you sleepy, not me! It all comes down to chemicals, which brings me to question, what are the chemical/s behind sadness?

While I found tons of information concerning happiness and the brain, I found a great deal less on sadness. Depression, yes, but the simple emotion of sad, no. Compared to depression, which is long term and known to be linked physical brain differences, simple sadness is brief and much harder to pinpoint. Although I never really found my answer I did find an interesting study explained on Newsweek about the emotion sad. It stated that Drs Peter J. Freed and J. John Mann conducted 22 studies with non-depressed sad volunteers and found that, “sadness appeared to cause altered activity in more than 70 different brain regions.” (4) These regions were also known to process things like, conflict, pain, social isolation, memory, reward and body sensation (& many more). They also noticed that sadness was triggered by different stimuli depending on the person. I found this fascinating, 70 different places... that's crazy! 

After looking into the actual areas that showed altered activity, I was particularily drawn to the ones that linked to memory (the hippocampus & amygdala) and taste (the insula). (4) I mean how does sadness link to taste!? The science museum website notes that "when you recall an emotional event, you recall not only what happened, but also how you felt," (2) which explains why the memory region of the brain showed altered activity. Perhaps whatever stimuli shown to the participants triggered another emotional memory? Along with this, strong emotional memories can also bring back memories of other senses that were present at the time e.g. smell & taste. You might be thinking, well of course, that happens to me all the time! And yes it does, but I'm interested specifically in why it happens. 

So, why write this? Well in all honesty its mostly just my string of thoughts, something that I find interesting that I thought I'd share. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on this and find out if you have any interesting mind/brain related posts! 

What are you particularly interested in? 

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References: 

1. UPMC, (2016). How brain chemicals influence mood and health, [online], Available at: http://share.upmc.com/2016/09/about-brain-chemicals/ [Accessed 22/01/2018].  

2. The Science Museum, (2017). Who am I, [online], Available at: http://whoami.sciencemuseum.org.uk/whoami/findoutmore/yourbrain/whatareemotions/whichareaofyourbraincontrolsemotions/areyouhappy [Accessed 22/01/2018]

3. Harper, K. (2015). So tired in the morning... The science of sleep, American Chemical Society [online]. Available at: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2014-2015/the-science-of-sleep.html [Accessed 22/01/2018] 
4. Miller, M. (2008). Sad brain, Happy brain, Newsweek [online]. Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/sad-brain-happy-brain-88455 [Accessed 22/01/2018] 

Other resources: 

• Integrative psychiatry, (2018). Serotonin, [online], Available at: https://www.integrativepsychiatry.net/serotonin.html [Accessed 21/01/2018]