Andrew Huberman· PhD
The modern research on grief reveals it has close resemblance with addiction, at least from the standpoint of the neural circuits involved incl. the deep sense of yearning.
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The modern research on grief reveals it has close resemblance with addiction, at least from the standpoint of the neural circuits involved incl. the deep sense of yearning.
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We saw that there was this little area, deep in the brain called the nucleus accumbens. Probably from other studies we know it's sort of in the neighborhood, caudate-ventral striatum sort of area. And, what we saw was the more people said, "I'm yearning for my loved one," There was a direct correlation with how much activity there was in the nucleus accumbens in this reward learning area of the brain.
And in our peripheral physiology, a lot of the ways we respond look like a stress response. So that, that makes sense. That was a good way to think about it in the '80s and early '90s. But the neuroimaging research, when we asked people, "Tell me how much you're yearning for your loved one," and then we put them in the scanner, and we