An emotion is described as, “a conscious mental reaction subjectively experienced as a strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Strong feelings of emotion, such as anger, love, fear, joy, hate, etc., impact parts of the brain, both positively and negatively, and how an individual learns.
In regards to the parts of the brain impacted by emotions, the limbic system is made of six different parts. First, the almond-shaped amygdala, is located in the medial temporal lobe, handles intense emotional responses, such as aggression or fear, and is very important in emotional learning. Secondly, is the hippocampus. The hippocampus also is located in the medial temporal lobe, is a structure where short-term memories are formed and, plays a role in emotions and memory. The third part of the brain impacted by emotions is the pre-frontal cortex that is located near the front of the head. It is involved in decision-making in response to emotions. The fourth is the hypothalamus. This structure is located in the diencephalon, feeds information into the amygdala, and acts as a regulator of emotion. The hypothalamus controls sexual desire, pleasure, aggression, and anger. The cingulated gyrus is the fifth part of the brain impacted by emotions. “An important part of the limbic system, the cingulate gyrus helps regulate emotions and pain. The cingulate gyrus is thought
The ability to identify emotion and carry it out into one’s daily life is what defines an individual as human; if one lacks emotion, then the individual will become a robot of society. Emotion is defined as a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others
To coordinate with our current chapter on emotions, our class watched the film Inside Out. The story was about the emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, controlling a goofy, honest, and caring 11 year old named Riley. Inside her brain, the emotions used controls to decide the way Riley feels. The part of the brain the “control center” in Inside Out represented was the Limbic System. I know this because during in our Body and Mind unit, the part of the brain we most associated with mood and emotions was this system. It is best defined as a complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, including areas concerned with instinct and mood. The Limbic System’s main control is emotions and drives feelings, which was the main purpose of the emotions “control center.”
The amygdalae (Latin, also corpus amygdaloideum, singular amygdala, from Greek αμυγδαλή, amygdalē, 'almond', 'tonsil', listed in the Gray's Anatomy as the nucleus amygdalæ)[1] are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans.[2] Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system.[3].
Emotions are used in our everyday lives help us understand and comprehend a situation. The way we feel can affect the way we think through a situation and the situation that we make. Our emotions are expressed when we play sports, when a loved one dies, or when we see our newly born baby for the first time. Emotions are a state of consciousness like joy, sorrow, fear, hate, and love. Whenever we are presented with a situation, our brain responds in feelings, and our feeling determine what will happen next.
The amygdala specializes in threat detection, fear, excitement, and arousal, hippocampus helps format long-term declarative memories and spatial reasoning. The anterior cingulate cortex influences autonomic function, decision making, error detection and emotion while the posterior has a role in spatial annotations memory. The septal area produces pleasurable feeling,
Emotions are used in everyday life, whether it be just a simple smile that makes happiness disperse in your brain, or a death of a loved one that causes sadness. The basic emotions are joy, interest, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. The way we see emotion in ourselves and others can be very complex because we sometimes assume they feel a certain way just based on their actions or even facial expressions. When emotion is discussed in psychological terms, it is not based on one thing, instead it’s a mix of bodily arousal, expressive behaviors, conscious experience. Many theories try to explain how emotion works.
Emotion and memory are actually very closely related. Thus, it is not surprising that the hippocampus is located in the limbic system, which is the emotion system portion of the brain. The limbic system is mainly associated with memory, motivation, and emotions (Memory). The hippocampus itself is located within the temporal lobes, right next to the amygdala. The structure is a horseshoe shaped paired brain structure, where one half of it is located in the left brain hemisphere, while the other half is in the right brain hemisphere (Robson).
Although many books have been written about communication and connection in relationships, there has been a book that addresses precisely this wonderful process as has James C. Petersen in his book: Why Don’t We Listen Better? And it is precisely the way in which the parts he divided the book that takes the reader to a better understanding of what the personal relationships connections through communications are concerned.
(Tonya Hines 2013) The cerebrum is the one that affects reasoning and emotions. But there are smaller parts to the three main areas; the smaller part of the brain that manages emotional reactions is the Anterior Cingulate Cortex(ACC). If something were to happen to the ACC or the cerebrum, the things that control, the emotions and reactions to these emotions could be bad, and could cause depression or anxiety The brain has so many cells, which contain DNA, which has information to choose which genes are used. When we grow we create DNA, sometimes when you copy DNA it can cause gene mutation which can cause a rise in disabilities or disorders. There are many ways that a brain can change; these are only a few that I feel are important to the topic. The brain is very interesting, there are so many things going on at one time that the thoughts can change the way a certain part of the brain works is so
The hippocampus is part of the limbic system that controls the emotions and autonomic nervous system. The hippocampus controls long-term and short-term memory. It is located in the medial temporal lobe of the brain behind the Amygdala (Hayhurst, 2002). The hippocampus links memory and emotion together,
The amygdala is part of the limbic system, which is the part of the brain that understands emotion. It is connected mainly to the brainstem and hypothalamus (Whalen & Phelps, 2009). The role of the amygdala in understanding emotion was first introduced
The limbic system was first recognized due to Franz Josef Gall (LeDoux, J., 1996). Franz Joseph Gall developed the idea of “phrenology” that focused on the study of the different variations of bumps on the human skull to be related to differences in behavioral and emotional functioning. The limbic system’s main function in the brain is to control emotional behaviors and certain forms of memories that are infused with emotion (amygdala). The amygdala is a part of the brain that forms the tail end of the basal ganglia within the rostral temporal lobe and is located near the hippocampus (Lambert, K.G. & Kinsley, C .H., 2005). The amygdala, as defined by the text, is an almond-shaped structure that functions as a part of the limbic system involved in regulation of emotion and sexual urges (Lambert, K.G. & Kinsley, C .H., 2005). In addition, the amygdala is comprised of a dozen or more sub regions that are not all involved in fear conditioning (LeDoux, J., 1996).
The amygdala is responsible for how one perceives certain emotions such as anger, fear, and sadness, also for controlling emotions like aggression.
Chapter 2 is centered on the early attempts to identify the brain’s components of emotions. Key researchers that are discussed are a Cornell neuroanatomist, James Papez, and aforementioned physician and neuroscientist Paul MacLean, who worked at Yale and the National Institutes of Mental Health. Together, this pair of researchers conducted seminal medial temporal lobe lesion experiments. The resulting idea was that the emotional brain is composed of a set of interconnected structures in the core of the brain. MacLean dubbed these structures as the “limbic system”. The function of the limbic system and it relationship to emotion was widely debated by many researchers.
When talking about emotion it seems a fairly simple topic and immediately "feeling" words come to mind; sad, happy, and confused. These are basic emotions and easy to understand. What isn't so simple about emotions is their process and how they form and work. Emotions are reactions to sensory information like sight, smell, taste, touch and sound (Tracing Emotion’s Pathways 94). However, it is not that simple; an emotional reaction or response is made aware of and understood by a part of the brain called the sensory cortex. These emotional responses or reactions to sensory stimuli are processed by a part of the brain called the amygdala (What’s An Emotion). The amygdala is a huge asset to the cognitive factors of emotions because in processing emotions you become able to understand, recognize, and control them. So then how do emotions evoke a physiological reaction such as tearing up when one feels sad, laughing with joy, and trembling with fear? These physiological reactions that one may experience come from the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is, “a collection of fibers that extend throughout