Interesting depression/pleasure parts of the brain

Twitch99 · Jun 01, 2020, 02:18 PM

Just did a couple of quick Google searches and found these 2 things interesting. Depression & pleasure both come from the same parts of the brain.

What part of the brain controls depression:

The main subcortical limbic brain regions implicated in depression are the amygdala, hippocampus, and the dorsomedial thalamus. Both structural and functional abnormalities in these areas have been found in depression.

What part of the brain controls pleasure and reward:

This is also called the reward circuit, which includes all kinds of pleasure, from sex to laughter to certain types of drug use. Some of the brain areas impacted by pleasure include: amygdala - regulates emotions. nucleus accumbens - controls the release of dopamine.

I'm no scientist nor do I do a lot of research in these areas. I just came across these and found it interesting

bpcyclist · Jun 02, 2020, 09:40 PM

Yes, this is fascinating. Of course, the threat assessment center must be calm to experience happiness or joy, so that part makes sense to me. Also, the memory centers are crucial, as well. If I see something that reminds me of a traumatic and painful event, my happiness will be replaced with pain and sorrow and perhaps fear or terror. On and on.

I have been studying moral decision making in the brain, because I am interested in the insanity defense. It is a similar overall setup in that virtually every single part of the brain is involved in making a moral decision in humans. It is not centralized, not in the least. It is extremely complicated, this process.