Amy Fleischer

This week we have touched on some important implications for affective neuroscience, including the de-stigmatization of mental illness and potential improvement of treatment for affective dysfunction. Now that we’ve asserted these very practical reasons for the onslaught of questions I am about to present, I feel less guilty for the confusion I may cause!

Common to all of our readings so far has been a concern for the concepts, methods, and implications of conducting research into emotional processes of the brain. The major task of breaking down exactly how we conduct such an inquiry is essential to the topic itself. In other words, our study of the brain is at once conceptual and concrete- it is also an immediate example of how we understand or process information. In this case, of course, our focus is the emotional content of experience and our aim should be to discover the neural correlates of emotion. However, I hope that we can be attentive to the technical content of each study while remaining aware of the more emotional aspects involved in learning. (Despite LeDoux: remember to observe how we perceive and understand information whether it is explicitly emotional or only referentially so.)

In his book, Descartes Error, Demasio probes the function of emotion by telling the story of Phineas Gage, a man who suffered a ghastly blow to the head and lived to tell about it. When a metal rod pierced his skull at tremendous speed, vital parts of his brain were destroyed. After the accident, Gage lost his ability to reason based on emotional information, which also meant that he could not sustain jobs or social relationships. He had lost his personality, an extremely significant yet elusive element of any person’s life.

From his story, we have learned that emotions direct bodily action and organize behavior that is motivationally consistent. Demasio's account suggests potential connections between decision-making and emotional processing. Furthermore, the studies that have followed serve to transform our understanding of the brain: whereas it was previously believed that regions of the brain possessed isolated functions, they actually perform as parts of a system.

In order to try and understand this endlessly complex system, Adolphs has distilled a two-part process consisting of a) the perceptual awareness of emotional information and b) the recognition of emotional meaning. (Before I continue, does this correspond to the assertion that emotional expression takes place in the hypothalamus and emotional experience occurs in the cerebral cortex?) His theory, as well as those of Feldman-Barrett and Wager, also involves a method of categorizing emotion that proves useful because of the problem it contains.

Perhaps I am stumbling over semantics, but I struggled with the debate between “categories” and “dimensions” of emotions. Such a classification does not seem accurate because the resulting groups are not mutually exclusive or fully comprehensive. Barely do they even seem comparable, since the list of “categories” is too limited and the list of “dimensions” too vague. Even though the latter may better account for varieties in emotional experience, it still presents a form of dualistic thinking that is restrictive. For example, approach/withdrawal cannot account for a multilayered experience of love, wherein a person can be compelled and repulsed at the same time. This and other so-called “social” emotions (in the service of communication) are deemed too complex for consideration. However, we should never cease to ask such difficult questions if we intend to understand such difficult topics.

Despite the fact that this type of categorization proved weak as a tool for analysis, it has led to more important questions. In the field of cognition, our attention has been turned to the activity of circuits in the brain. Neuroimaging techniques, such as PET and fMRI, have proved especially useful for exploring connections and finding patterns. A question that drives this method of research is how affective qualities of experience are linked with autonomic and behavioral control systems during the genesis of emotion. More specifically, one might ask (as MacLean has already) how these qualities unfold in the establishment and maintenance of psychosomatic diseases. Based on further research, another question posed in this weeks’ reading asks how the limbic system depends upon or interacts with the neocortex.

Over the years, the theory of localization has been challenged by theories of connectivity. Language becomes an issue, not only at the level of human interaction, but within individuals as well, which brings our curiosity to how regions of the brain may speak foreign languages to various other parts of the same brain. What results is a lack of communication between conscious and unconscious levels of experience.

A potential metaphor for our transformation in understanding that began with phrenology, or the study of bumps on the head, and evolved into the field of affective neuroscience might go like this: the early phase is like studying geography, the political divisions of land on earth’s surface, while the second phase attempts to be concerned with planet earth at every level. Not only might the inquirer of the second practice ask how continents are defined, or where tectonic plates exist, but he or she may also ask why it is that they move in the first place and what are the potential consequences of this action.

The fact there are so many levels at which to study the earth is exciting and overwhelming! Likewise, the brain is infinitely complex and invites equally complex methods of examination. Much of this discussion presupposes that emotion can be categorized in the first place. What do you think? Have we approximated a system already? I would like to discuss this and the many implications of neuroimaging in class. While I appreciate a very tangible approach to understanding emotions, it seems like technology is advancing at a pace that exceeds our ability to understand and use it well.