Lecture 1 - What is affective neuroscience? Flashcards
Affect
- The ‘good/bad’ quality of
experience - Feelings, emotions and moods
- Observable behavioural and
physiological changes - Influences cognition and
behaviour - Affective processing is disrupted
in psychiatric disorders including
depression & anxiety
Feeling happy, angry, or sad can
powerfully influence our actions and
the decisions we make. But why?
What is affective
neuroscience according to Panksepp?
“Affective neuroscience is the study
of how the brain processes
emotions.”
“The term ‘affective neuroscience’
was coined by neuroscientist Jaak
Panksepp, at a time when cognitive
neuroscience focused on parts of
psychology that did not include
emotion, such as attention or
memory.”
Jaak Panksepp (1943- 2017)
Estonian-American scientist
“The ‘emotions’ are excellent
examples of the fictional causes
to which we commonly attribute
behavior.”
B.F. Skinner
Science & Human Behavior
(1953)
“To understand the basic emotional
operating systems of the brain, we
have to begin relating incomplete
sets of neurological facts to poorly
understood psychological
phenomena that emerge from
many interacting brain activities.”
First edition 1998, Oxford University Press
Panksepp, 2005, p.3
“It is essential to synthesize behavioral,
psychological, and neurological
perspectives. Many disciplines are
contributing facts that are useful for
achieving the needed synthesis, but there
is presently no umbrella discipline to
bridge the findings of animal
behaviorists, the psychological basis of
the human mind, and the nature of neural
systems within the mammalian brain.”
First edition 1998, Oxford University Press
Panksepp, 2005, p.5
“…a missing piece that can bring all these
disciplines together is a neurological
understanding of the basic emotional
operating systems of the mammalian brain
and the various conscious and unconscious
internal states they generate. This new
perspective, which I have chosen to call
affective neuroscience … is deeply rooted
within physiological psychology, behavioral
biology, and the modernized label for all of
these disciplines: behavioral neuroscience.”
First edition 1998, Oxford University Press
Panksepp, 2005, p.5-6
Pankspepp believed it was
essential to understand foundation
of emotions in animals to be able
to understand emotions in humans
He argued that we cannot know
with certainty what another being
experiences, be it human or nonhuman
“…the question of whether other animals affectively
experience the world and themselves in a way similar
to humans- as subjectively feeling, sentient
creatures. The topic of subjectivity is one that modern
neuroscience has avoided. It is generally agreed that
there are no direct, objective ways to measure the
subjectivity of other animals, nor indeed of other
humans. Only their words and actions give us clues
about their inner experiences. But if we consider
actions to be valid indicators of internal states in
humans, we should also be ready to grant internally
experienced feelings to other animals.”
“…there are presently no direct metrics
by which we can unambiguously quantify
changes in emotional states in any living
creature. All objective bodily measures,
from facial expressions to autonomic
changes, are only vague approximations
of the underlying neural dynamics…”
”…the nature of human and animal
emotions cannot be understood without
brain research”
First edition 1998, Oxford University Press
Panksepp, 2005, p.9
“…analysis of animal emotions (via
a careful study of how animal
brains control certain behaviors)
makes it possible to conceptualize
the basic underlying nature of
human emotions with some
precision”
First edition 1998, Oxford University Press
Panksepp, 2005, p.9
What is affective neuroscience according to other sources?
Wikipedia:
“Affective neuroscience is the study of
how the brain processes emotions.”
“The basis of emotions and what
emotions are remains an issue of
debate within the field of affective
neuroscience.”
The Neuroscience of Emotion by Adolphs and Anderson:
* Aim to understand neurobiological
underpinnings of emotions as a brain
function
* Defines ‘emotions’ as states of the brain
as distinct from conscious feelings
* Conscious feelings are just one layer of
emotional experience that can be studied in
humans
* Emotion as neurobiological brain states can be
studied in humans and animals by focusing on
behavioral expression of emotion
* Basic research on emotion control in the brain
will help understand and treat mental illness
* Outlines a framework for studying
emotion not another theory of emotion
“Scientists studying emotion in rats and in
humans need to be able to speak to one
another…
Adolphs & Anderson, 2018, p.xii
