On the other hand, a group of people with intense fear of making public speeches were told they would be required to do just that. Their right prefrontal lobes went ballistic as they got closer to making the speech. Naturally, drug companies have been banging on Davidson's door. He says that some studies have found that antidepression drugs increase left prefrontal cortex activity, although there is no research yet on how long the effects last. Yet drawing the line between the physical and the psychological is not easy.
Data suggest there's a lot of plasticity that appears to be present up until the time of puberty.
But brain function might be malleable even in adults. The results are not yet in, Davidson said. With the blessing of the Dalai Lama, Davidson is also studying Buddhist monks, both in Tibet and Wisconsin, to see whether their lives of meditation show up on their prefrontal lobes. Whatever this research will ultimately show, happiness is clearly more than the sum of brain circuits. Researchers have noticed, for example, that people's responses to questions about happiness change depending on the context in which they are asked.