RETHINKING THE EMOTIONAL BRAIN

By Joseph E LeDoux. Neuron, 2012

1,463 citations recorded by the source corpus.

I propose a re-conceptualization of key phenomena important in the study of emotion — those phenomena that reflect functions and circuits related to survival, and that are shared by humans and other animals. The approach shifts the focus from questions about whether emotions that humans consciously feel are also present in other animals, and towards questions about the extent to which circuits and corresponding functions that are present in other animals (survival circuits and functions) are also present in humans. Survival circuit functions are not causally related to emotional feelings, but obviously contribute to these, at least indirectly. The survival circuit concept integrates ideas about emotion, motivation, reinforcement, and arousal in the effort to understand how organisms survive and thrive by detecting and responding to challenges and opportunities in daily life.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/74d6e0a2d84c8bc3fb1a626062c42d12f5669f04

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Citations in the corpus

Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects (2015, background): “For many, the core of emotion is the subjective experience (Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, & Gross, 2007; LeDoux, 2012).”
The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization (2017, critical): “D ow nloaded from https://academ ic.oup.com /scan/article-abstract/12/1/1/2823712 by guest on 04 M ay 2020 2017), has wreaked havoc with the scientific accumulation of knowledge about emotion (also see Barrett, 2012; LeDoux, 2012).”
Emotional States from Affective Dynamics (2013, background): “As such, what is typically taken as evidence of basic emotions from the literature may be better labeled survival circuits (LeDoux, 2012).”
Artificial Intelligence and Surgical Decision-Making (2019, background): “71, 72 Intuition can also identify patients with life-threatening conditions that would be underappreciated by traditional clinical parameters alone.”
Time, Emotion and the Embodiment of Timing (2013, neutral): “…9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 29 29 30 30 31 31 32 32 33 33 34 34 35 35 36 36 37 37 38 38 39 39 40 40 41 41 42 42 ger different adaptative responses from the organism (for a recent discussion, see Ledoux, 2012).”
A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications (2018, background): “In turn, CeA has direct connections to periaqueductal gray (PAG), a fundamental area that organizes the threat response (LeDoux, 2012).”
Psychological impact of covid-19 crises on students through the lens of Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model (2020, background): “Fear is a common emotional reaction by the psychological defensive mechanism of human nature to counter any threat (LeDoux, 2012).”
A Framework for Studying Emotions Across Phylogeny (2014, positive): “…achieve a consensus definition that is accepted across fields from neuroscience to psychology to philosophy have repeatedly failed, to the extent that at least one prominent emotion researcher has suggested that we excise the word “emotion” altogether from our scientific vocabulary (LeDoux, 2012).”
The ecology of human fear: survival optimization and the nervous system (2015, background): “In humans, the highly developed ability to envisage, simulate and predict future scenarios allows us to modify our current behavior to prepare, escape, or even avoid possible future dangers (Suddendorf andCorballis, 2007).”
EEG Based Emotion Recognition: A Tutorial and Review (2022, background): “The distributionist view argues that no single anatomical structure uniquely specializes for individual emotion categories [40, 41].”
The Conceptual Act Theory: A Précis (2014, background): “Evidence that there are distinct circuits for behavioral adaptations does not falsify the CAT because we do not define emotions as actions (Barrett, 2012; for a similar view, see LeDoux, 2012).”
Why fish do not feel pain (2016, background): “The importance of distinguishing between instinctive behaviours generated by the brainstem and felt emotions generated by the cortex has been previously discussed extensively (LeDoux, 2012; LeDoux, 2013; LeDoux, 2014a; LeDoux, 2014b; Rolls, 2014a; Rolls, 2014b; Scott, 2014).”
Insects have the capacity for subjective experience (2016, background): “The importance of distinguishing between instinctive behaviours generated by the brainstem and felt emotions generated by the cortex has been previously discussed extensively (LeDoux, 2012; LeDoux, 2013; LeDoux, 2014a; LeDoux, 2014b; Rolls, 2014a; Rolls, 2014b; Scott, 2014).”
Childhood Adversity and Neural Development: A Systematic Review (2019, background): “…given the central role of the amygdala in aversive learning, threat detection, and the mobilization of defensive responses to external stimuli (LeDoux 2003, 2012), although it is well established that the amygdala responds not only to threatening cues but also to a wide variety of stimuli…”
636,120 Ways to Have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (2013, background): “…life events (Bolger, 1990); how significant others aid in coping with life-threatening events, such as cancer onset (Bolger, Foster, Vinokur, & Ng, 1996); or how contextual threat cues are encoded into memory, leading to behavior change, in animal models (LeDoux, 2012; Phillips & LeDoux, 1992).”