Question

1. Describe how emotions are a distributed, emergent property of interacting brain regions as opposed to arising from compartmentalized and specific brain regions. 2. Also, provide an example.

Answer 1

Each emotional event cannot be deconstructed to emerge from a specific set of neurons, tissues, networks or parts of the brain. On the contrary emotions are a set of complex phenomena resulting from the interaction of several core systems of the brain. The traditional school that believed in the attribution of emotions to extremely specific brain regions has been uprooted by emerging trends in the area of brain imaging studies.

It is important to study and understand the workings of these core systems with reference to its relationship to the dynamic co-activation of several other core systems. The impact and effect of these interactions play and important role in processing of information that result in emotions.

For example, a person who perceives danger may fight, flee or freeze. This means that when the brain perceives fear, there are a suite of associated physical changes in the body. The unique interaction of the core systems in the brain forecast the action of the person and the reaction of others to that person.