Emotion Explained

Abstract

The book links the analysis of the brain mechanisms of emotion and motivation to the wider context of what emotions are, what their functions are, how emotions evolved, and the larger issue of why emotional and motivational feelings and consciousness might arise in a system organized like the brain. The topics in motivation covered are hunger, thirst, sexual behaviour, brain-stimulation reward, and addiction. The book proposes a theory of what emotions are, and an evolutionary, Darwinian, theory of the adaptive value of emotion, and then describes the brain mechanisms of emotion. The book examines how cognitive states can influence emotions, and in turn, how emotions can influence cognitive states. The book also examines emotion and decision-making, with links to the burgeoning field of neuroeconomics. The book describes the brain mechanisms that underlie both emotion and motivation in a scientific form that can be used by both students and scientists in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, biology, physiology, psychiatry, and medicine.