Affective neuroscience

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

Overview

Affective Neuroscience is an attempt to understand how emotions are generated by the brain. An underlying assumption is that emotions are linked 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 Paul Ekman and colleagues suggests that emotions are universal, each associated with a distinct set of neural circuits in the brain.

History

The term "Affective Neuroscience" was coined by Jaak Panksepp in his book Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. Panksepp's work has focused on understanding the neurobiology of emotions, including the neural mechanisms of pleasure and addiction.

Research Methods

Research in Affective Neuroscience primarily involves the use of animal models, but also includes human subjects. Techniques used include neuroimaging, neurophysiology, computational modeling, and neuropsychology.

Key Concepts

Affective Neuroscience distinguishes between primary, secondary, and tertiary process emotions. Primary process emotions are thought to be hard-wired in the brain's architecture, and include fear, joy, anger, sadness, and disgust. Secondary process emotions involve cognitive processing, while tertiary process emotions involve conscious, reflective thinking about our emotions.

See Also

• Emotion
• Neuroscience
• Paul Ekman
• Jaak Panksepp