Beauty and the brain

Beauty, be it a beautiful face, art, or piece of music, activates the part of our brain known as medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC, red area in diagram below). mOFC is also involved in our emotions, feelings of reward and pleasure, and ability to make decisions.

Diagram from  Milad et. al. PNAS 2005

In response to this finding, John Lehrer suggested in "Why Does Beauty Exist" that the feeling of beauty is useful. According to Lehrer: 

"Beauty is a particularly potent and intense form of curiosity. It’s a learning signal urging us to keep on paying attention, an emotional reminder that there’s something here worth figuring out... ... We know just enough to know that we want to know more; there is something here, we just don’t what. That’s why we call it beautiful."

A few years back, R.J. Dolan and colleagues also showed that our mOFC is more active when we are looking at a happy looking face, as manifested in a smile. 

mOFC more active                                   mOFC less active

mOFC more active                                   mOFC less active

                           mOFC more active                                           mOFC less active

So,  

SMILE AWAY!!!!!