Neural correlates of gratitude

When you diminish your feelings, you diminish your aliveness. Expanding your capacity for intimacy, love, and connection is one of life’s most precious gifts and stimulates neurogenesis, for the brain is wired for emotional relationships. With negative relationships and chronic feelings of stress and depression this capacity shrinks—and so does neu

The largest bright region at the back of the brain is the posterior cingulate, which gives us a physical sense of where we are—our internal GPS. It is strongly connected to the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the watchtower I discussed in chapter 4.