--- title: "Researchers Found What Sadness Looks Like in the Brain" description: "New research has identified a \"sadness circuit\" in the brain, a neural circuit connecting the amygdala with the hippocampus, which helps store memories." date: "2018-11-09" modified: "2018-11-12" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/sadness-circuit-brain" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "emotions" - "sadness" - "university of california" --- # Researchers Found What Sadness Looks Like in the Brain ![Sadness is associated with a particular neural circuit connecting the amygdala with the hippocampus, which helps store memories.]() *\Image: Ben Sweet/Tag Hartman-Simkins\* ## I'm Not Okay You know what it feels like to be sad. But until recently, neuroscientists [knew little about]() what the melancholy emotion looked like from a scientific perspective. They knew the part of the brain called the amygdala played a role, but brain scans weren't fast enough to catch what was happening during moment-to-moment fluctuations in emotional state. ## Tears Don't Fall That changed when a team of researchers at the University of California asked 21 epilepsy patients to carefully log their moods. Each of those patients had been previously outfitted with tiny wires that monitored their brains' electrical activity, making it easy for the UC team to look for patterns between their brain activity and mood. In a [new paper](), published Thursday in the journal *Cell*, the researchers report an unexpected finding**.** In most of the patients, they noticed a link between sadness and a particular neural circuit that connected the amygdala, which deals with emotional fluctuations, with the hippocampus, which helps store memories. ## Misery Business It makes sense, researcher Vikaas Sohal [told *NPR*](), that there would be a link between sadness and remembering bad things that have happened to you — though they haven't yet confirmed that that's what's going on. In fact, it's still not clear whether the circuit between emotion and memory causes the feeling of sadness or the other way around. Still, Sohal said he hopes the finding will bring comfort to patients in the form of a new explanation for what's going on during times of sorrow: "As a psychiatrist, it's incredibly powerful to just be able to say to patients, 'Hey, I know there's something happening in your brain when you're feeling down.'" **READ MORE:** [Researchers Uncover A Circuit For Sadness In The Human Brain]() \[*NPR*\] ***More on sadness: [Magic Mushrooms “Reset” Key Brain Circuits in Depressed People]()*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()