The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life

Overview:The idea that our "emotions cloud our judgment" implies we might all be better off with out them. Yet Joseph LeDoux seems to challenge, successfully I might add, this idea in his book "The Emotional Brain: the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life." Intrigued by his research I chose to read, and review, this book as a part of an Introductory Neuroscience class. I found the thesis presented in LeDoux's book both convincing and simultaneously accessible to the non-specialist who might be interested in the topic. Emotion as a non-conscious function with anatomical pathways was supported by both anecdotal evidence and easy to interpret figures. Is this book a complete account of the mysteries that are our emotions? Not exactly. However, what it is lacking is made up for by the quality of information and ideas that are presented. While perhaps not a great book to bring to the beach (unless you should be so scientifically inclined), this book provides a good, mostly complete introduction to understanding what emotions are and what they mean to us as evolutionary beings. I would recommend this book to anyone interested specifically in the pathways regarding emotional response, or more generally interested in the science of emotion.Synopsis of Parts:Rather than divided by chapter, this book follows eight different yet inseparable and frequently overlapping themes as it seeks to divulge the secrets of emotions.Theme 1:The first theme is the most fundamental. Emotions are in fact a function of the brain and that these functions cannot be lumped unceremoniously into one "functional" unit of the brain as has been done in the past.Theme 2:While all brains are different, especially between species, the brain systems behind what we classify as emotional behaviors (i.e. the fear response) are conserved through out much of evolutionary history.Theme 3:If these emotional responses occur in an animal capable of conscious thought, emotional "feelings" may result. Otherwise emotional responses are carried out minus any awareness that we generally associate with emotions.Theme 4:Connected to the third theme, the fourth is that these resulting "feelings" are not in fact central to the study of emotion but rather the pathways that result in the non-conscious emotional response are fundamental.Theme 5:The evolutionary relationship between the emotion response between animals and humans allows for the critical step of using animal studies to help understand these pathways.Theme 6:Conscious feelings of fear or other emotions are no different than consciousness of other more mundane facts such as color. What differ are the systems that provide the inputs to "the system of awareness."Theme 7:Emotions occur, or happen to us, rather than being something we modulate or control.Theme 8:The occurrence of emotions becomes motivators for specific behaviors (depending on the emotion) in the future.In addressing these themes a good portion of the book is dedicated to the explanation of past research and current in the field of neuroscience and the challenges of understanding emotion.Style and Structure:The book reads more as a series of stories with only the occasional insertion of textbook drone. Experimental results blend with historical stories of early medicine and more modern understanding of molecular and cellular processes of the Brain. Along with the addition of a few strategically placed charts, the result is a nice combination of detailed information and practical application. Not to mention clever chapter titles and subheadings.Opinion:What is good: 1.BackgroundThe book begins with a good introduction into the research about emotion and the brain as well as some introduction to the author and his background on this topic. For anyone interested in neuroscience this book is an excellent source of information with out being a sleep aid replacement. 2. InformationLeDoux asks, "Where is evolution taking our brain?" The part I valued most about this book was the support for the idea of emotions, and emotional responses as being intrinsic biological responses resulting from an evolutionary need to survive. Thinking and awareness take time, and when responding to danger, more time to react may frequently mean less likelihood of survival. As a result "prepackaged responses have been shaped by evolution and occur automatically." Along with making something so intangible as our emotions more understandable, there is also a significant amount of discussion as to what this means for mental illness. The majority of the studies presented are with regard to fear. Fear is used because it is common both the humans and experimental animals and is relatively easy to control and measure. But it also helps explain a good deal about the biology of anxiety and other diseases related to fear that have traditionally been difficult to treat.The arguments against the more traditional view of the limbic system as the "emotional center" of the brain were also well supported. The idea that emotion is a result of multiple different pathways not confined to one specific region reflects a more current understanding of the brain. The final chapter is particularly interesting where, after eight chapters of emphasizing the separation between emotional response and conscious thought, LeDoux begins to propose an understanding of what we perceive as emotions or feelings. His proposal is interesting because it is so simple: that feelings are simply the result of a conscious awareness of an unconscious emotional response. Or in his words LeDoux, "passed the emotional consciousness buck. [He] redefined the problem of emotional feelings as the problem of how emotional information comes to be represented in working memory." But it is this interpretation that LeDoux says will allow us to understand emotional disorders and more specifically how to treat them.What is not so good: 1. To MUCH backgroundWhat was on one hand a pro, the extra background information, is also in some way a con. There is a surprising amount of information given about early theories about emotional pathways. So much so that when LeDoux later states that these ideas fail to fully explain the concept, it comes as a bit of a surprise. Why would he dedicate so much time to an idea that is contrary to his point? As a student interested in many aspects of the research and subject as a whole this historical background was not that off putting personally, however I can see how the detailed history in many parts might be cumbersome. Additionally, the "extra information" is not necessarily confined to the first chapter meaning it is hard to just skip a chapter or two and get straight to the meat of the book. 2. Just one emotionThe book focuses almost exclusively on the emotion of fear. While it is understandable for experimental purposes, it book is limited in that it doesn't give a complete representation of "emotion" per se but more specifically of fear and or anxiety. Where is the love?

If you feel confused or annoyed by your emotional states that you find difficult to control, this book will explain why it is so, which in turn may - paradoxically - put you at ease. If nothing else, then this already makes it well worth a read!

This book, funded by the Neuroscience Research Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health of America, certainly doesn't fall into the category of pop science; rather it is a thorough and systematic piece of research, which includes original experiments as well as a summary of the scientific literature on this subject. As a general reader I found it quite a slog, but I am glad I bought it as it is an original work which is cited by others.LeDoux chose fear as the main subject of his study of emotions. He gave various reasons for this:* Fear is pervasive.* Fear plays an important role in psychopathology.* Fear is expressed similarly in humans and other animals.These factors provided LeDoux with ample source material for his reseach which included his own experiments on animal brains and studies about the removal of parts of the brain of human epileptic patients.For me his most fascinating discussion was about our primitive brain- in LeDoux's words - "we are emotional lizards" - meaning we detect and respond to fear in the same way as all vertebrate animals. When faced with a frightening situation we freeze, our heart rate accelerates and muscles contract. Stress hormones are released into the bloodstream and reflexes are heightened. One interesting and merciful point about the fear reaction is that it is virtually impossible to feel strong fear and pain at the same time, as when we are frightened our sensitivity to pain is greatly diminished. I was also interested to read that the "lizard" brain has its own memory - traumatic experiences which zap straight from the thalamus to the amygdala may never reach the cortex, with its conscious awareness.The lizard brain is our fastest and most primitive pathway for responding to fear, with messages sent straight from the thalamus to the amygdala. However a second pathway goes from the thalamus to the cortex to the amygdala, a slightly indirect pattern which appears to be unique to humans and other primates.The cortex, which is our centre of consciousness and language, helps us to understand a threat and consider how we might deal with it. Thanks to the cortex we can be proactive as well as reactive. However, since it is slower to react than the more instinctual lizard brain, it is obviously handy to have both. It is interesting to note that people who are very anxious from birth tend to have a thicker cortex than others - presumably from trying to rationalize and cope with their anxiety, a form of fear.LeDoux poses the question - "where is evolution taking our brain?" He speculates that as humans move further up the evolutionary chain, our minds could develop increased connectivity between the amygdala and cortex which would lead to a more harmonious balance between reason and passion.Given LeDoux' scholarly approach, I was surprised to discover one major mistake. He described the "wild pig" phenomena observed among the Gururumba "a horticultural people living in the highlands of New Zealand." As a New Zealander I can say that if there are such people, it is an incredibly well kept secret! I can only presume that these people come from another country, perhaps one of our Pacific neighbours.One other minor quibble about the book is the low quality cardboard used for the cover which is so flimsy it curls around and gives no protection to the pages. It is possibly the worst quality book cover I have ever come across and does a disservice to the publisher Simon and Schuster.

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It was a bit dry because its like walking you through the history of emotion research. it gets really good in the end though. as it all comes together and integrates. at same time, this approach i found helpful for really explaining without him having to explain it directly - when you see the time line and the research and realize there is a diffusing time period for things to diffuse in society. Well what happend here is you can see why we all have walked around with our head up our *** for so long and our society is such a mess. when this core stuff hasnt been figured out, no wonder there is so much stuff occuring in history.

Although I found Ledoux more readable than Damasio, I have two major gripes with the book. The main one is the title: there is not a lot in the book about emotions in general; Ledoux rapidly zeroes in on the single emotion of fear. On this subject he is relatively enlightening, but it wasn't what I expected or hoped for. Additionally, the blurb suggests a book which is highly readable, but I did not find this to be the case. It's fairly readable, but has a tendency to get lost in detail. I would say it is not ideally pitched to the non-specialist reader (though likely at the same time to be oversimplified for a specialist), and does not belong to the best in science writing. It is of course also somewhat dated by now. I learnt something from this book, but a general book on recent contributions of neuroscience to psychotherapy would have gotten me more rapidly to my goal.

Brilliant book. A little complicated to understand the in-depth stuff especially if you've not studied neuroscience but once you do some research it all makes sense. I used this as my inspo and help with my uni dissertation and together with other papers it helped me to battle my own anxiety and panic attacks so I think it deserved good 5 stars!

Interesting, and possibly more up to date than Daniel Goleman's 'Emotional Intelligence'. But the Goleman book taught me much more and lasted longer in the memory.

This is about the nuts and bolts of emotion - from a top world scientist. At times the writing is technical - as in, not written in a populist way. Stick with it and learn.

book great state