This process is called emotion regulation. In the second section, you learned how an MRI camera works and how it can be used to take images of the structure and function of the brain. In the next section, we want to combine these two things and talk about the parts of the brain that are responsible for processing and regulating emotion. Using MRI cameras, scientists have shown that emotions are processed by many different areas of the brain.
There is not just one place that is responsible for processing an emotion. Several brain regions work together as a team. This is why scientists say that emotions are processed by a network of brain regions. A network of brain regions that process emotions is called an emotion processing network see Figure 3. Let us name some of those brain regions that are activated by emotions. They are the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, the cingulate cortex, the hippocampus, and the basal ganglia [ 3 ].
Fancy names, but it is not these names you need to remember. What is important to understand is that there are many brain regions involved during emotion processing.
All the different regions have their own job and they all work together to identify and control an emotion. The amygdala, for example, is a tiny part of the brain it has the shape and size of an almond , and it is responsible for handling both positive and negative information. The amygdala is especially important when we experience the emotion of fear. Another region of the emotion processing network is the prefrontal cortex, which is named after its location: in the front of the brain.
The prefrontal cortex is like a control center, helping to guide our actions, and therefore, this area is also involved during emotion regulation. Both the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex are part of the emotion network. Just like good friends, these different brain regions stay in touch and communicate frequently with each other. For example, the amygdala the emotion center can detect an important fearful event and transport that information to the prefrontal cortex the control center.
The prefrontal cortex gets the message that there is something scary happening. If necessary, this control center at the front of your head sends commands to other brain regions telling them to move your body and run away. To sum it up, many brain regions work together to process and react to an emotional situation see Figure 3. By now, you understand that feelings are complicated and that emotions are represented and processed by many regions in the brain.
As mentioned before, it can be really difficult to be around people that are constantly cursing, hitting, or bullying the people around them because they cannot control their negative emotions.
Unfortunately, some children struggle more than others with their emotions. Imagine you have a classmate named Jamie, who has problems with regulating emotions, especially anger and fear. Now picture that you make a silly joke with Jamie, but instead of laughing, Jamie gets very upset and maybe even starts fighting with you.
This is an example of someone who has emotion regulation difficulties. Such difficulties in handling emotions can often be observed in very aggressive frequently fighting and bullying and antisocial breaking rules teenagers. Research studies have shown that these teenagers cannot always successfully identify their emotions.
It can also be very hard for these children to control their emotions, like in the case of Jamie. This is not fun for you, if you become a victim of Jamie when he wants to fight you. But it is also not fun for Jamie, who might be expelled from school for his behavior.
It is no fun either for his parents or the people around him. Studies using magnetic resonance imaging MRI have found the insula lights up with activity when someone feels or anticipates pain. The periaqueductal gray, located in the brainstem , has also been implicated in pain perception.
The periaqueductal gray is also involved in defensive and reproductive behaviors, maternal attachment, and anxiety. While emotions are intangible and hard to describe — even for scientists — they serve important purposes, helping us learn, initiate actions, and survive. Adapted from the 8th edition of Brain Facts by Alexis Wnuk. Deborah Halber Deborah Halber is a Boston-based author, science writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Time.
Engage local scientists to educate your community about the brain. Explain the brain to your students with a variety of teaching tools and resources. For Educators Log in. Brain Primer. About the Author. References Craig ADB. How do emotions work? This might seem like an odd question since we all experience emotions every day: happiness at seeing an old friend, sadness while watching a tragic film, fear of losing the ones we love.
Emotions seem automatic. Your heart skips a beat, your nerves do a little dance, your face moves in familiar ways, and you are carried away by the experience.
Nevertheless, from a scientific standpoint, what are emotions really? For centuries, famous thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Darwin and Freud, as well as countless other scientists, have tried to explain emotion using common sense. Emotions feel natural and uncontrollable, the reasoning went, so they surely must be built into us from birth. In recent years, however, the field of neuroscience — the study of how the human brain creates the human mind — has surged. With this interest has come intense research and renewed debate on the nature of emotions.
A few decades ago, scientists could only guess how the brain creates our emotional experiences. Now, though, we can use brain-imaging to harmlessly peer inside a head. This allows us to observe neural activity, moment by moment, inside living people. And when it comes to emotion, what we see in those brains seems to defy common sense.
Emotions are not what most people think they are. What happened inside you? The traditional explanation goes like this. That fingerprint was presumably passed down to humans through evolution, along with fingerprints for other emotions. Scientists have been searching for emotion fingerprints in the face, body and brain for over years without success.
We now know definitively that some people who lack an amygdala can still feel fear. The same is true of every other brain area that has ever been claimed as the home of an emotion. The main problem with the classical view of emotion is that emotional life has too much variety to be shoehorned into a bunch of universal fingerprints. Do you always gasp? Of course not. People who feel fear might scream, cry, laugh, close their eyes, clench their fists, wave their arms, strike out, faint, or even stand motionless.
Another study on babies showed that their facial movements are pretty much indistinguishable in fear and anger. No emotion has a single fingerprint in the body. Instead, variety is the norm.
Not only that, but different cultures have different emotions.
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