Neuroscience & Emotion

Neuroscience & Emotion

The purpose of the present essay is to shed light on neural correlates of emotions. Emotions are real physically as much as psychologically. How does the brain produce or process emotion? One may want to turn to academic, or scholarly, articles for an answer. Likewise, in choosing sources, the rule stands that the more recent the work – the better; unless, of course, it’s a classic. Most place the time limit around 10-20 years.} Thus, the present draft briefly discusses neural correlates of emotion. Cerebral mapping, enabling localization of function, can discover these clusters. However, the brain is very active, so the baseline activity must be deducted from the activation during exposure to particular stimuli. The mechanism is called the subtraction method. For the purpose of establishing cerebral correlates of human emotion, the most common stimulus type used is facial expressions.

Popular neuroimaging techniques include [PET, CAT, MRI and fMRI]*. Other methods supplying neuroscientific insight include electrophysiology, lesion studies and TMS. By the way, gyri (gyrus) represent brain ridges, whereas sulci (sulcus) correspond to grooves. In a contemporary contribution to science, Vytal & Hamann (2010) combine two research methods to compose their work: a literature review and a statistical technique (meta-analysis). The authors explore basic emotion theory (fear, anger, sadness, happiness, and disgust) and corresponding consistent findings of reliable neural correlates. Nonetheless, some doubt remains in the community.

Bigh Fish. Do the Big Fish Have Any Emotions? Illustration - Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

In their meta-analysis, Kober & Wager (2010) insist that the amygdala, [usually regarded as fundamental in feeling, and reacting to, fear] is not critical for the experience of emotion, but for its perception. The authors maintain that the subcortical structure gets involved when visual stimuli may convey consequential information through emotional display. Li et al. (2010) confirm that the parahippocampal gyrus/amygdala becomes activated bilaterally during emotion perception. In their publication, the fusiform gyrus (known for facial recognition) is also active because subjects are trying to process facial expressions of affective states. Further, the relationship extends to the area, together with the right superior frontal gyrus and lentiform nucleus.

According to their meta-analytic review of a compilation of neuroimaging studies, patients with schizophrenia appear to have difficulty with the task. The researchers suggest that perhaps this structural dysfunction causes the impaired affect understanding associated with the illness.

On a final note, all three sources mentioned agree to at times disagree. Thus, in assessing limitations of scientific reports, one must realize that findings are seldom perfectly consistent. Still, validity, replicability and generalizability of effects are conditions for a theory to be supported and accepted. Hopefully, the present essay has fulfilled its purpose, which was to describe the main neural substrates of emotion known today, connecting neuroscience to psychology.

*Some ABBREVIATIONS commonly used in the field:

ALE – Activation Likelihood Estimation

CAT – Computerized Axial Tomography

CIM –Contrast Indicator Map

CM – Contrast Map

FDR – False Discovery Rate

(f)MRI – (functional) Magnetic Resonance Imaging

FWER – FamilyWise Error Rate

FWHM – Full-Width Half-Maximum

(M)KDA – (Multilevel) Kernel Density Analysis

PET – Positron Emission Tomography

TMS – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation