For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the intersection of psychology and brain science that uplifts human well-being.
For much of its history the study of the human brain had a negative tilt, focusing on the atypical, the abnormal, the injured, and (because of the difficulty of accessing the living brain) the deceased. But in recent times neuroscience has taken a positive turn. Technologies like fMRI scans allow researchers to safely observe the healthy human brain in action, and a growing interest in the scientific study of human flourishing has led to the emergence of “positive neuroscience” — a burgeoning field of study that focuses on the nervous system mechanisms that underlie well-being.
Aug 22, 2023, updated Mar 31, 2025