BRAIN ACTIVITY DURING TRANSIENT SADNESS AND HAPPINESS IN HEALTHY WOMEN

Objective: The specific rain regions involved in the normal emotional states of transient sadness or happiness are poorly understood. The au thors therefore sought to determine if (H2O)-O-15 positron emission to mography (PET) might demonstrate changes in regional cerebral blood fl ow (rCBF) associated with transient sadness or happiness in healthy ad ult women. Method: Eleven healthy and never mentally ill adult women w ere scanned, by using PET and (H2O)-O-15, during happy, sad, and neutr al states induced by recalling affect-appropriate life events and look ing at happy, sad, or neutral human faces. Results: Compared to the ne utral condition, transient sadness significantly activated bilateral l imbic and paralimbic structures (cingulate, medial prefrontal, and mes ial temporal cortex), as well as brainstem, thalamus, and caudate/puta men. In contrast, transient happiness had no areas of significantly in creased activity but was associated with significant and widespread re ductions in cortical rCBF, especially in the right perfrontal and bila teral temporal-parietal regions. Conclusions: Transient sadness and ha ppiness in healthy volunteer women are accompanied by significant chan ges in regional brain activity in the limbic system, as well as other brain regions. Transient sadness and happiness affect different brain regions in divergent directions and are not merely opposite activity i n identical brain regions. These findings have implications for unders tanding the neural substrates of both normal and pathological emotion.