REGIONAL far behind the eye that become active when people think about the good things that happen in the future. The more optimistic one, the area is increasingly bright. That was evident in brain scans as scientists reported in a small study published online in the journal Nature.
Same part of the brain called the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (RACC has) seems to crash when the depression, said Elizabeth Phelps of New York University and Tali Sharot of University College London, who participated in the study.
The experts in the study MRI scan (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to 15 people when they’re thinking about the possibility in the future. When the participants thought about good events both RACC has or amygdale involved in emotion and fear response is activated. However, no correlation with the greatest optimism in the cingulated cortex.
“The same study also found that people tend to think that happy event is near and seen more clearly than the ugly incident, even when they had no reason to believe it,” said Phelps. Psychologists have long called it as optimism bias, but recent studies provide new details.
When the researchers asked the subjects to think about 80 different events in the future that may be good, bad or neutral, they have trouble thinking negative or even neutral about the future.
“For example, when asked to think about haircuts in the future, people imagine the best haircut of their lives, instead of regular haircuts,” Phelps said.
“The study assessed sense and pulls together new and different part of the research about the optimism and the brain,” said Dan Schacter, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who was not involved in the study.
Actually allowing the brain to think optimism is a good thing. “Because if you are pessimistic about the future, you will not be motivated to take action,” Phelps said.