How does the brain balance happiness and pain? It may be another cause of depression.

Happiness and pain are two kinds of emotions that we often have. How do brain neurons deal with these opposite motivations? Recently, researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have revealed this mechanism in neuron, that is, different types of neurons control positive and negative motivations and send opposite signals along the same processing circuit of motivation.and the balance of activities between the two groups of cells may determine a person to seek happiness or avoid pain.ventral globus pallidum (VP), the information processing center in rat brain comes from Li Lab / CSHL, the ability of recognizing and coping with potential rewards and punishments in 2019 is regulated by ventral pallidum (VP) to a certain extent.in order to explore how different types of neurons ensure that animals respond appropriately to these two motivational signals, Professor Bo Li et al. Trained mice to associate certain sounds with a mouthful of water (reward) or a mouthful of air (punishment), and monitored the activity of a single brain cell in the VP region with a flash lamp.at the same time, it was found that GABA neurotransmitter was very important in stimulating mice to seek water reward by inhibiting the active neurons that affect motivation in the circuit; on the other hand, glutamate neurotransmitter was also used to stimulate neurons in the brain circuit, which was essential to avoid the punishment of air expansion.the monitoring of single brain cell activity comes from Li Lab / CSHL, 2019. In the face of complex stimulation of reward and punishment, the response of mice in different situations is also different.for example, thirsty animals are more likely to risk inhaling air for a sip of water than animals that are just full of water.but if researchers artificially change the activity balance of VP by manipulating one of the neurons, it will change the behavior of animals.inhibiting or stimulating the balance between VP neurons in the cerebral cortex is crucial for controlling the behavioral motivation of animals. Professor Bo Li speculated that the behavioral changes of patients with depression or stress anxiety may be caused by changes in this circuit. The future research team will explore the causes and symptoms of these diseases in a more in-depth manner.end reference: [1] how the brain balances please and pain