The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis

by Ralph Adolphs, David J. Anderson

A new framework for the neuroscientific study of emotions in humans and animals

The Neuroscience of Emotion presents a new framework for the neuroscientific study of emotion across species. Written by Ralph Adolphs and David J. Anderson, two leading authorities on the study of emotion, this accessible and original book recasts the discipline and demonstrates that in order to understand emotion, we need to examine its biological roots in humans and animals. Only through a comparative approach that encompasses work at the molecular, cellular, systems, and cognitive levels will we be able to comprehend what emotions do, how they evolved, how the brain shapes their development, and even how we might engineer them into robots in the future.

Showing that emotions are ubiquitous across species and implemented in specific brain circuits, Adolphs and Anderson offer a broad foundation for thinking about emotions as evolved, functionally defined biological states. The authors discuss the techniques and findings from modern neuroscientific investigations of emotion and conclude with a survey of theories and future research directions.

Featuring color illustrations throughout, The Neuroscience of Emotion synthesizes the latest in neuroscientific work to provide deeper insights into how emotions function in all of us.

Genres: Neuroscience, Science, Nonfiction, Psychology

376 pages, Hardcover

Published June 5, 2018

Reviews

[Jacopossum · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of this book (basically up to chapter 7 I would say) is exactly what I expected from many other books about animal behavior/cognition/consciousness and whatnot. This is because the book starts by illustrating epistemological principles from scratch. It does not jump into fancy anecdotal evidence about animal emotions (à la De Waal), rather it lays up a framework (admitting it might be wrong and will likely be redefined as more evidence is gathered) and then uses this framework to analyze individual cases across evolution.
Therefore, by focusing on the building blocks of emotions as functional states, the path toward complexity seems less daunting and dispersive. The authors do a very good job in outlining their own definition of emotion, locating emotion into a broader behavioral and cognitive scheme (somewhere between reflexive and deliberative behavioral actions) and then illustrate instantiations of such phenomena in rodents, invertebrates and finally human.
It is in this last bit, the human bit, that I got lost. I understand the importance of depicting the current scientific panorama around the study of emotions, but since the current frameworks lack the solid neuroscientific background that the authors propose I felt a little bit confused about the last chapters.
That said, a good reading!

[R B · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is neither neuroscience nor an exploration of emotion. Reading this book was like being a sober witness to a nonsense pseudo-philosophical drunken conversation, in which the participants wrongly believe themselves to be ultra-compelling.

They present a lot of problems and precisely zero solutions. The first three chapters are a dizzying circular semantic argument that tries, and fails, to quantify exactly what is meant by “emotion”. My perseverance to slog through this section was rewarded with tired tropes (including fear conditioning and Phineas Gage) and endless reiterations of the same non-points.

[Wing · Rating 3 out of 5]

This primer provides a rigorous road map for how to study emotions defined in terms of function and conceptualised in a multidimensional phase space. As the title suggests, it primarily deals with the neuroscience aspects without downplaying the importance of an interdisciplinary approach. Cautioning against oversimplification of what is extraordinarily complex and abstract is a recurrent theme of the book. A substantial part of the book is devoted to the details of methodology. This gives the reader a solid understanding of the epistemological framework and limitation. It also explains why bracketing out qualia will not hamper our understanding of emotions, and why animal studies are highly relevant. The authors clearly articulate how philosophical musings ought to be based on empirical researches and observations. It is however overall a rather technical tract.

[Leonardo]

las técnicas modernas de formación de imágenes del cerebro han permitido estudiar la amígdala, ejemplo ilustrado en los estudios de Ralph Adolphs...

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