This review paper provides an integrative account regarding neurophysiological correlates of positive emotions and affect that cumulatively contribute to the scaffolding for happiness and wellbeing in humans and other animals. This paper reviews the associations among neurotransmitters, hormones, brain networks, and cognitive functions in the context of positive emotions and affect. Consideration of lifespan developmental perspectives are incorporated, and we also examine the impact of healthy social relationships and environmental contexts on the modulation of positive emotions and affect. The neurophysiological processes that implement positive emotions are dynamic and modifiable, and meditative practices as well as flow states that change patterns of brain function and ultimately support wellbeing are also discussed. This review is part of "The Human Affectome Project" (http://neuroqualia.org/background.php), and in order to advance a primary aim of the Human Affectome Project, we also reviewed relevant linguistic dimensions and terminology that characterizes positive emotions and wellbeing. These linguistic dimensions are discussed within the context of the neuroscience literature with the overarching goal of generating novel recommendations for advancing neuroscience research on positive emotions and wellbeing.

Environmentally induced stereotypies, commonly observed in farm and zoo animals, are behaviors that are relatively invariant, that are regularly repeated, and that serve no obvious function. However, there is as yet no accepted means of discriminating between normal and abnormal behavior, and the assumption that stereotypies are abnormal may mask the fact that they arise in part through processes that “normally” control behavior. There is growing evidence that stereotypies in sows and broiler breeders are strongly related to feeding motivation. For example, sows only develop oral stereotypies if their feed intake is restricted, and operant conditioning experiments have shown commercial levels of feed restriction to give rise to high levels of feeding motivation. Stereotypies in animals whose feed intake is restricted largely occur in the postprandial period, and ingestion of food has specifically been shown to elicit stereotypies in sows. These observations suggest that positive feedback from feeding produces a short-term increase in feeding motivation that at the end of the meal is directed toward available, alternative stimuli such as chains, the choice of stimuli reflecting the sensory feedback from the activity. Drinking behavior may also become an expression of feeding behavior after metabolic water requirements are met. In addition to these processes specific to feeding motivation, it seems likely that nonspecific processes, which operate more generally across motivational systems, contribute to the persistence of the behavior. Behavioral arousal may facilitate performance of active behaviors, and sensitization of the underlying neural elements may lead to the behavior being more easily elicited and maintained. A crucial factor in the sensitization process would seem to be the channeling of complex behavior by the environment into a few and very often repeated sequences of behavior. This approach suggests that stereotypies can be prevented by either reducing the level of motivation underlying the stereotypy, or by allowing for the expression of more complex behavior and thereby preventing the processes of channeling and sensitization from occurring.