Citation

Luo Y, Qi S, Chen X, You X, Huang X, Yang Z. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2017; 12(10): 1678-1686.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/scan/nsx078

PMID

28985373

Abstract

What is a good life and how it can be achieved is one of the fundamental issues. When considering a good life, there is a division between hedonic (pleasure attainment) and eudaimonic well-being (meaning pursuing and self-realization). However, an integrated approach that can compare the brain functional and structural differences of these two forms of well-being is lacking. Here, we investigated how the individual tendency to eudaimonic well-being relative to hedonic well-being, measured using eudaimonic and hedonic balance (EHB) index, is reflected in the functional and structural features of a key network of well-being-the default mode network (DMN). We found that EHB was positively correlated with functional connectivity of bilateral ventral medial prefrontal cortex within anterior DMN and bilateral precuneus within posterior DMN. Brain morphometric analysis showed that EHB was also positively correlated with gray matter volume in left precuneus. These results demonstrated that the relative dominance of one form of well-being to the other is reflected in the morphometric characteristics and intrinsic functions of DMN.

© The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

Language: en

Keywords

default mode network; eudaimonic and hedonic balance; eudaimonic well-being; functional connectivity; hedonic well-being; voxel-based morphometry