Sparks of joy

What if a jolt of electricity could make you happy?

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/02/22/new-experiment-scientists-used-jolts-electricity-spark-actual-joy/#.XHeCgmnks0P
People all around the world have been exhausting themselves of late trying to “spark joy” in their lives.
Any emotion we feel has a physical cause inside our brains: Electrical charges pass from neuron to neuron. It seems that what we call happiness is just electricity.

And now researchers say they’ve found a remarkably specific means of triggering the electrical fireworks that add up to happiness in our brains: sending small bursts of electricity to cingulum, a horseshoe of brain matter that links to regions associated with emotion, self-assessment, social interaction and motivation, among other things

Keep in mind that to be able to send the electricity to brain, a surgery is needed. Also it would be too simplistic to say the researchers have stumbled upon the place where joy hides within us. But it seems that they have found one new way to activate joyful feeling.

One interesting thing is that this basic idea had already noted in science fiction ages ago. In the sci-fi realm they’re called wireheads. They are addicted to pleasure induced by electrically stimulating the brain.

If this interested you, check also this posting of using electricity for virtual taste and smell at http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2018/10/22/virtual-reality-with-smells-and-taste-will-meet-synthetic-food/