That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites-Nostalgia

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

Have you ever thought fondly about your past? In this week's Neuroscience Bite, we discuss the neuroscience behind Nostalgia. 

Hi, my name is Olive Krigolson, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another Neuroscience Bite. Have you ever reflected upon your past, you know, thought back to a time or a place or a person and you just miss them. Well, we call that nostalgia. So on today's bite, a little bit about the brain and nostalgia. So nostalgia has a bit of a up and down history. It was originally coined in the 30s and basically it was thought to be a negative psychological symptom. People talked about it in terms of depression and the fact that it made people sad and you

could even make them sick. Symptoms also included anxiety and pessimism and insomnia. And this perception was pretty well entrenched. However, as we moved into the later part of the 20th century, nostalgia sort of became a more positive thing. People have considered it a positive emotion that, yeah, a bit bittersweet, but it was a way to reflect upon the past and sort of process, you know, events that had happened to you. So as long as you maintain a positive outlook about it, thinking about your past and not getting caught up in it, it's thought to be a positive thing to do. Now, what about the brain? Basically, nostalgia is thought to be made up of complex circuitry that involves parts of the brain involved with self-reflection, all right,

and that would be the prefrontal cortex, largely, but a few midbrain structures, parts of the brain that are activated when we're thinking about self, autobiographical memory, so that's, you know, our memories or a story about ourselves, which of course is our old friend, the hippocampus, but also the prefrontal cortex a little bit. And again, some midbrain areas. It also associated with emotion, which of course, our old friend, the amygdala, but also the anterior cingulate cortex,

which plays a role in sort of regulating emotion. And finally, nostalgia is associated with reward processing circuitry. So the midbrain structures like the striatum, the substantia nigra pars compacta, the ventral tegmental area, and of course, our old friend, the neurotransmitter dopamine. So nostalgia and that self-reflection that we go through in thinking about the past, it involves this complex brain circuitry that is sort of this process of reflection. And from a psychological perspective, nostalgia is not a bad thing as long as you keep

it under control. So there's a little bit on the neuroscience of nostalgia. Remember, check out the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. It's got links to everything. If you've got ideas, this one came from a listener. Follow me on Twitter at that neuroscience guy and DM me. And of course, please subscribe to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And that's another neuroscience bite. My name is Olaf Krigolsen and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you on Sunday for a full episode of the podcast.