The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional LifeWhat happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive. Unlike conscious feelings, emotions originate in the brain at a much deeper level, says LeDoux, a leading authority in the field of neural science and one of the principal researchers profiled in Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. In this provocative book, LeDoux explores the underlying brain mechanisms responsible for our emotions, mechanisms that are only now being revealed. The Emotional Brain presents some fascinating findings about our familiar yet little understood emotions. For example, our brains can detect danger before we even experience the feeling of being afraid. The brain also begins to initiate physical responses (heart palpitations, sweaty palms, muscle tension) before we become aware of an associated feeling of fear. Conscious feelings, says LeDoux, are somewhat irrelevant to the way the emotional brain works. He points out that emotional responses are hard-wired into the brain's circuitry, but the things that make us emotional are learned through experience. And this may be the key to understanding, even changing, our emotional makeup. Many common psychiatric problems - such as phobias or posttraumatic stress disorder - involve malfunctions in the way emotion systems learn and remember. Understanding how thesemechanisms normally work will have important consequences for how we view ourselves and how we treat emotional disorders. |
From inside the book
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Page 80
... reactions by the slightest events . They seemed to be lacking any regulation of their rage , which suggested that cortical areas ( like Plato's chario- teer ) normally rein in these wild emotional reactions and prevent their expression ...
... reactions by the slightest events . They seemed to be lacking any regulation of their rage , which suggested that cortical areas ( like Plato's chario- teer ) normally rein in these wild emotional reactions and prevent their expression ...
Page 133
... reactions , much variation is possible . In fact , defense reactions should be thought of as con- stantly changing , dynamic solutions to the problem of survival . They are not static structures created in ancestral species and ...
... reactions , much variation is possible . In fact , defense reactions should be thought of as con- stantly changing , dynamic solutions to the problem of survival . They are not static structures created in ancestral species and ...
Page 146
... reaction can return in full force . Like extinction , therapy does not erase the memory that ties fear reactions to trigger stimuli . Both processes simply prevent the stimuli from unleashing the fear reaction . I'll have much more to ...
... reaction can return in full force . Like extinction , therapy does not erase the memory that ties fear reactions to trigger stimuli . Both processes simply prevent the stimuli from unleashing the fear reaction . I'll have much more to ...
Other editions - View all
The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life Joseph Ledoux Limited preview - 1998 |
The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life Joseph Ledoux Limited preview - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
activity amygdala animals anxiety disorders appraisal auditory autonomic awareness axon basic emotions behavior Blanchard bodily responses brain regions brain systems cells cerebral cortex Chapter cingulate cognitive science conditioned fear conscious memory cortical areas damage danger defense elicit emotion system emotional brain emotional experiences emotional feelings emotional memories emotional responses Erdelyi evolution evolutionary example explicit memory expression fact fear conditioning fear responses fear system feedback FIGURE functions Gazzaniga hippocampus hormone human hypothalamus important inputs involved kinds lateral learning LeDoux lesions limbic system long-term memory MacLean mechanisms mediated memory system mental mind monkeys neocortex nervous system neural neurons Neuroscience NMDA receptors occur panic Papez pathways patient perception phobias prefrontal cortex problem psychology rats reactions receptors result role sensory situations snake species sponses stimuli stress studies subjects synaptic temporal lobe thalamus theory things tion tional trauma trigger unconscious processes visceral brain visual cortex York