Affective neuroscience

Overview

Affective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood.

Brain areas related to emotion

Emotions are thought to be related to activity in brain areas that direct our attention, motivate our behavior, and determine the significance of what is going on around us. Pioneering work by Broca (1878), Papez (1937), and MacLean (1952) suggested that emotion is related to a group of structures in the center of the brain called the limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, cingulate cortex, hippocampi, and other structures. More recent research has shown that some of these limbic structures are not as directly related to emotion as others, while some non-limbic structures have been found to be of greater emotional relevance. The following brain structures are currently thought to be most involved in emotion:

• Amygdala — The amygdalae are two small, round structures located anterior to the hippocampi near the temporal poles. The amygdalae are involved in detecting and learning what parts of our surroundings are important and have emotional significance. They are critical for the production of emotion, and may be particularly so for negative emotions, especially fear.
• Prefrontal cortex — The term prefrontal cortex refers to the very front of the brain, behind the forehead and above the eyes. It appears to play a critical role in the regulation of emotion and behavior by anticipating the consequences of our actions. The prefrontal cortex may play an important role in delayed gratification by maintaining emotions over time and organizing behavior toward specific goals.
• Anterior cingulate — The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is located in the middle of the brain, just behind the prefrontal cortex. The ACC is thought to play a central role in attention, and may be particularly important with regard to conscious, subjective emotional awareness. This region of the brain may also play an important role in the initiation of motivated behavior.
• Ventral striatum — The ventral striatum is a group of subcortical structures thought to play an important role in emotion and behavior. One part of the ventral striatum called the nucleus accumbens is thought to be involved in the experience of goal-directed positive emotion. Individuals with addictions experience increased activity in this area when they encounter the object of their addiction.
• Insula — The insular cortex is thought to play a critical role in the bodily experience of emotion, as it is connected to other brain structures that regulate the body’s autonomic functions (heart rate, breathing, digestion, etc.). This region also processes taste information and is thought to play an important role in experiencing the emotion of disgust.

Relationship to cognitive neuroscience

In its broadest sense, cognition refers to all mental processes. However, the study of cognition has historically excluded emotion and focused on non-emotional processes (e.g. memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery). As a result, the study of the neural basis of non-emotional and emotional processes emerged as two separate fields: cognitive neuroscience and affective neuroscience. The distinction between non-emotional and emotional processes is now thought to be largely artificial, as the two types of processes often involve overlapping neural and mental mechanisms. Thus, when cognition is taken at its broadest definition, affective neuroscience could also be called the cognitive neuroscience of emotion.

See also

• Affective science
• Affective spectrum
• Bipolar disorder
• Cognitive neuroscience
• Emotion
• Emotion and memory
• Emotional Stroop test
• Evolutionary neuroscience
• Mirror neuron
• Mood
• Neuropsychiatry
• Personality
• Psychophysiology
• Quantum mind
• Schizoaffective disorder
• Social neuroscience

References

• Broca, P. (1878) "Anatomie comparée des circonvolutions cérébrales: le grand lobe limbique." Rev. Anthropol. 1:385-498.
• Dalgleish T. (2004) "The emotional brain." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5:583-9. PMID 15208700
• Damasio AR. (1996) "The somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the prefrontal cortex." Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 351(1346):1413-20. PMID 8941953
• Davidson, RJ & Sutton, SK (1995) "Affective neuroscience: The emergence of a discipline." Current Opinion in Neurobiology 5:217-224. PMID 7620310
• Davidson, RJ, Irwin, W. (1999) “The functional neuroanatomy of emotion and affective style.” Trends in Cognitive Science 3:11-21. PMID 10234222
• Davidson, RJ (2000) "Cognitive neuroscience needs affective neuroscience (and vice versa)." Brain & Cognition 42:89-92. PMID 10739607
• Davidson, RJ (2001) "Toward a biology of personality and emotion." Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences 935:191-207. PMID 11411166
• Panksepp, J (1992) "A critical role for 'affective neuroscience' in resolving what is basic about basic emotions." Psychol Rev. 99(3):554-60. PMID 1502276
• Ledoux, JE (1995) "Emotion: clues from the brain." Annu Rev Psychol. 46:209-35. PMID 7872730
• Maclean, PD. (1952) "Some psychiatric implications of physiological studies on frontotemporal portion of limbic system (visceral brain)." Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol Suppl. 4(4):407-18. PMID 12998590
• Papez JW. (1937) "A proposed mechanism of emotion. 1937." J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 7(1):103-12. PMID 7711480

Further reading

• Panksepp J. (1998) "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (Series in Affective Science)." Oxford University Press, New York, New York. ISBN 0-19-509673-8.
• Lane RD, Nadel L. (2000) "Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion (Series in Affective Science)." Oxford University Press, New York, New York. ISBN 0-19-515592-0.
• Brain and Cognition, Vol. 52, No. 1, pp. 1-133 (June, 2003). Special Issue on Affective Neuroscience. ISSN: 0278-2626