Our Emotions and Their Relationship with Brain Chemistry In our lives we experience many and different types of emotions. But ultimately we must ask ourselves “What Is The Correlation Between Emotions and Brain Chemistry (A.K.A. What is the relationship between emotions and our brain’s actions/activities)?” To understand this we must know what emotions really are, Their original use, what happens in one’s brain during an emotional event, and all the mental effects of emotions to fully understand what the correlation between emotions and brain chemistry is. To start we ask what really are emotions? In all truthfulness emotions are really just compound and complex thoughts in your brain and the emotions anyone is feeling now is just an emotional state consisting of multiple emotions and other thoughts. Emotions are also more complex than this statement suggests. Almost everything is emotional; examples of this are that colors are more emotional than black and white along with things that are personal or close to us they are emotional rather than those that are not. Opinions are also very emotional an example is you think poorly of others especially if they have made you mad, angry, sad, or irritated but you think highly of others if they make you happy, joyous, needed, or smart. To continue with this thought of learning about emotions we shall transfer to the original use of them. The original use was the fight or flight mechanic of evolution to survive. Such as the use of dopamine our source of happiness its actual purpose is to use the reward-learning process which is when one does something good and then rewarded with a happy feeling so that want to do it again and again. Pain and anxiety are another example and serve the unple... ... middle of paper ... ...und thoughts. Their purpose to make sure we survive to the next day through fight or flight. The way an emotions are processed is that right brain identifies then left brain decides logically what to do and uses the sympathetic nervous system to relay it's response and the GABA keeps it in control. The mentality of emotions consists of memory of which your emotions are also stored in, decision-making which includes the emotions in your memory in the decision-making, the thoughts,opinions in the brain, and the attention span are also are affected by your emotional state. Thus based on your emotional states and experiences your brain chemistry will behave towards the best interest of surviving to the next day even though this is different for each person the emotions one is experiencing and how their brain reacts is the correlation between brain chemistry and emotions.
Perceiving Emotions- the first step in understanding emotions is to accurately perceive them. This involves understanding nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expression.
The emotional coping function is also known as the mammalian brain since it is common to all mammals whose babies are born live and completely dependent upon their mother for survival. Neuroscientists, refer to this small but essential brain function as the limbic system. As we will see, without our emotional brain mothers would not feel an instinctive need to nurture and feed their young. Nor would babies recognize and sense that their survival depends upon staying close to their mother for protection. This relatively small but important brain function serves a variety of coping and sensory purposes including our capacity for emotional attachment to others. When we talk about our "feelings" we are describing sensations and impulses arising from our emotional coping brain.
The human brain weighs only 3lbs. Though it is the most fragile organ in the human body is the most complex. It has complete control over a person 's physical and psychological homeostasis. The brain plays a large role when it comes to emotions. The amygdala is a structure in the brain that recognizes the first response to an emotional event. It is a tiny almond shaped structure located deep within the brain. This tiny structure triggers a series of reactions within the brain and sends signals throughout the body that account for body language, facial expression, breathing and awareness. These emotions are important in social interactions and forming social connections. The awareness of one’s emotion is crucial to everyday decision making,
Emotions – Emotions are a way for us to be able to communicate our emotional state and feelings with others. Sometimes this is through our moods or even facial
LeDoux, J. (1998). The emotional brain. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. (Chapter 4 will go on LN).
Metaphorically, emotional energy begins with what Peterson (2007) calls a “thud” and causes a feeling in the gut, such as anger, excitement, jealousy, or happiness. This feeling, whether it is positive or negative, grows and puts pressure on the heart, hardening it and closing the openness one may have earlier had towards what other people feel or ideas they may have. When the heart hardens, the brain becomes “flat” and causes the ears to become barred from hearing anything besides what is inside the mind. This process, called th...
The human brain is so interesting because of all of its functions. The brain is so unique every function is unique and the brain is capable of doing anything. In the video “Building Your Brain: Inside the Human Body” we can see how all of this function take place and see the wonderful things are brain can do. In the video “Into the Mind: Emotions” we can also see how important our brain is when it comes to our emotions. These two videos discuss really important things about our brain.
Hamilton, L.W. (2012). The Brain and Our Emotional Future: Foundations of Emotions [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from Soul Beliefs: Causes and Consequences Online Course site: rutgersonline.net.
Most of the body’s functions such as, thinking, emotions, memories and so forth are controlled by the brain. It serves as a central nervous system in the human body. The mind is the intellect/consciousness that originates in the human brain and manifests itself in emotions, thoughts, perceptions and so forth. This means that the brain is the key interpreter of the mind’s content. Jackson and Nagel seem to resist identifying what we call “mental events” with brain events, for different reasons, while J.J.C. Smart takes the opposing view.
One explanation that claims emotions are universal comes from Darwin (1872 in Smith & Kosslyn, 2009). Darwin adopted an evolutionary perspective of emotions by contending that emotions are universal which consist of biological components in which individuals are able to recognise emotional expressions of individual’s across different cultures. Definitions of emotions are many and varied. Emotions influence behaviour and can be positive and negative. They are also associated with physiological and cognitive changes and can influence behaviour (in Smith & Kossyln, 2009).
Emotion and cognition are intricately intertwined and hard to tell which is influencing us in our everyday lives. While the former are sometimes referred to as feelings and affects (this term would be used interchangeably with emotion in this article) or “hot cognition”, the latter is often thought as our reasoning, or “cold cognition” (Zajonc, 1980). However, it is quite evident from our day-to-day account of events that it’s always the emotional parts of life that catch our attention - especially the bad ones. For one thing, as a general phenomenon, bad news is considered more newsworthy and can easily attract more reader attention (Baumeister,
Discuss the "cognition versus biology" debate in the study of emotion. Outline first the cognitive position and then the biological position. Discuss one possible, satisfying resolution to the cognition versus biology debate, using an original example to illustrate this
Emotion is the “feeling” aspect of consciousness that includes physical, behavioral, and subjective (cognitive) elements. Emotion also contains three elements which are physical arousal, a certain behavior that can reveal outer feelings and inner feelings. One key part in the brain, the amygdala which is located within the limbic system on each side of the brain, plays a key role in emotional processing which causes emotions such as fear and pleasure to be involved with the human facial expressions.The common-sense theory of emotion states that an emotion is experienced first, leading to a physical reaction and then to a behavioral reaction.The James-Lange theory states that a stimulus creates a physiological response that then leads to the labeling of the emotion. The Cannon-Bard theory states that the physiological reaction and the emotion both use the thalamus to send sensory information to both the cortex of the brain and the organs of the sympathetic nervous system. The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial expressions provide feedback to the brain about the emotion being expressed on the face, increasing all the emotions. In Schachter and Singer’s cognitive arousal theory, also known as the two-factor theory, states both the physiological arousal and the actual arousal must occur before the emotion itself is experienced, based on cues from the environment. Lastly, in the cognitive-mediational theory
One scientist, Damasio, provided an explanation how emotions can be felt in humans biologically. Damasio suggested, “Various brain structures map both the organism and external objects to create what he calls a second order representation. This mapping of the organism and the object most likely occurs in the thalamus and cingulate cortices. A sense of self in the act of knowing is created, and the individual knows “to whom this is happening.” The “seer” and the “seen,” the “thought” and the “thinker” are one in the same.” By mapping the brain scientists can have a better understandi...
The ability to experience and express emotions can be a long process. Everyone starts experiencing emotions pretty much from the day of birth; as a person grows up with their family every single day they become more experienced and have more emotions that can help create and form their lifestyle. The decisions a person makes is always influenced by the emotions they have at the current time and the emotions they have experienced before. Experiencing emotions are easier than expressing them. Emotions may be easier to express at a younger age, but as anyone grows older it becomes more difficult. Both experiencing and expressing emotions are different for everyone. The ability to express emotions can be influenced by a person 's culture, personality,