Brainwashed: Debunking Neuroscience Myths By Phileine de Widt

“I’ll never be happy again.” Maybe you have whispered this as you anxiously walked through Wilhemina at 16:30 – everything already dark. Maybe you screamed this as you strenuously biked through the freezing rain that’s clamping onto your already cold and pale skin. Maybe you thought this as you prepare your typical pasta pesto… for yourself… on Valentine’s day. Wintertime in the Netherlands is dark and stormy and not in the “fun rum and ginger beer” way. The cold, lack of sun, and abundance of rain – or at best mushy snow – leads many to say this phrase. If you truly feel your happiness has permanently packed its bags because the sun did, I’m happy to tell you that you've been brainwashed. 

Let’s begin by diving into what happiness looks like in neuroscience. Though it seems logical to assign one brain region to happiness, as if it were a map and pin, it is more complex than that. Happiness is not a single chemical or brain region lighting up like your “oh, I only smoke when I’m out” cigarette. Instead, it is an ecosystem of interacting elements – a Newton unit with maxed out double-rooms, if you will. 

Some brain areas thought to collectively represent joy are the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and ventral striatum. These regions help you interpret positive experiences, filter emotional significance, and respond to achievement, connection, and reward. Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins aid to keep the happiness ecosystem alive and well. These chemical messengers motivate you to seek rewards, they stabilize mood, assign positive associations to human connection, and dull physical and emotional pain. Together, they create a rich emotional landscape called happiness. 

Like a real ecosystem, your brain and its happiness network are constantly adjusting. Your neural circuits can adapt. So, your winter blues may feel permanent, but it is just your brain responding to the environment – not a life sentence. 

The environment that we live in lacks adequate sunlight. Yes – even the abundance of light entering your un-openable Kromhout window is not enough to support your healthy ecosystem. When hit with light, a small structure in your anterior hypothalamus, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), becomes activated. The SCN controls your circadian rhythm, more commonly known as your internal clock. An activated SCN sends signals to all other elements involved in the happiness ecosystem and results in a release of the necessary chemical messengers. When it's daytime, the SCN adjusts your circadian rhythm by further regulating hormones like melatonin and cortisol, so you can be alert, energized and, of course, happy. 

With less sunlight, your natural rhythm can drift, leading to fatigue, irritability and other hallmark symptoms of the winter slump. In mood disorders like major depression and bipolar disorder, circadian rhythms are often blunted or delayed, even in the most sunny of places. 

So, when Spring finally arrives and you all spawn on the quad like tulips poking through the soil, know that it is not just the weather that is changing, but also your entire neurochemical balance. With this Spring edition, I wish you all the happiness… I promise, it’s coming back!