Sustained striatal activity predicts eudaimonic well-being and cortisol output
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Eudaimonic well-being—a sense of purpose, meaning, and engagement with life—is protective against psychopathology and predicts physical health, including lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Although it has been suggested that the ability to engage the neural circuitry of reward may promote well-being and mediate the relationship between well-being and health, this hypothesis has remained untested. To test this hypothesis, we had participants view positive, neutral, and negative images while fMRI data were collected. Individuals with sustained activity in the striatum and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to positive stimuli over the course of the scan session reported greater well-being and had lower cortisol output. This suggests that sustained engagement of reward circuitry in response to positive events underlies well-being and adaptive regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
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Further work has linked purpose to better regulation of physiological systems (e.g., reduced inflammatory markers and cardiovascular risk factors) as well as brain-based mechanisms (e.g., insular cortex volume, reduced amygdala activation, sustained ventral striatum activation).
“Further work has linked purpose to better regulation of physiological systems (e.g., reduced inflammatory markers and cardiovascular risk factors) as well as brain-based mechanisms (e.g., insular cortex volume, reduced amygdala activation, sustained ventral striatum activation) (22 -30).”
From Purpose in life and use of preventive health care services (2014) · cites this paper as [28]
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPsychotropic medications such as SSRIs have been shown to enhance prefrontal down-regulation of the amygdala in healthy controls and depressed patients.
“As psychotropic medications, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, have been shown to enhance prefrontal down-regulation of the amygdala in healthy controls (Sladky, Spies, et al., 2015) and in depressed patients (Heller et al., 2013; Maslowsky et al., 2010), medication effects are an important consideration for future research on emotion regulation.”
From Changes in functional connectivity with cognitive behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder predict outcomes at follow-up (2020) · cites this paper as Heller et al., 2013
The Abstract and Discussion discuss sustained reward-circuit activity and well-being, not medication effects on prefrontal regulation of the amygdala. A References entry names a separate study of antidepressant treatment and fronto-striatal connectivity, but our copy does not report the claimed amygdala finding. Searches for SSRIs, medication, and prefrontal down-regulation found no supporting passage. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- Authors
- Heller, A. S., van Reekum, C. M., Schaefer, S. M., Lapate, R. C., Radler, B. T., Ryff, C. D., & Davidson, R. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading
- ORCID
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-09-20
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 2191-2200
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC3866962
- OpenAlex
- W2163186714
- Cited by
- 150
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 12.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- CentAUR (University of Reading) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (P01AG020166)
- National Institute of Mental Health (P50MH084051, R01MH043454)
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (P01AT004952)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P30HD03352., P30HD003352)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- eudaimonic well-being, striatum, reward systems, cortisol, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, stress response, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, positive image, sustained neural activity, meaning in life, emotion regulation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Corpus Striatum, Emotions, Female, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Personal Satisfaction, Pituitary-Adrenal System, Reward, Saliva, Functional Neuroimaging
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