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Journal ArticleDOI

The nature of feelings: evolutionary and neurobiological origins

01 Feb 2013-Nature Reviews Neuroscience (Nature Publishing Group)-Vol. 14, Iss: 2, pp 143-152
TL;DR: Feelings constitute a crucial component of the mechanisms of life regulation, from simple to complex, and can be found at all levels of the nervous system, from individual neurons to subcortical nuclei and cortical regions.
Abstract: Feelings are mental experiences of body states. They signify physiological need (for example, hunger), tissue injury (for example, pain), optimal function (for example, well-being), threats to the organism (for example, fear or anger) or specific social interactions (for example, compassion, gratitude or love). Feelings constitute a crucial component of the mechanisms of life regulation, from simple to complex. Their neural substrates can be found at all levels of the nervous system, from individual neurons to subcortical nuclei and cortical regions.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
06 Jun 1986-JAMA
TL;DR: The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or her own research.
Abstract: I have developed "tennis elbow" from lugging this book around the past four weeks, but it is worth the pain, the effort, and the aspirin. It is also worth the (relatively speaking) bargain price. Including appendixes, this book contains 894 pages of text. The entire panorama of the neural sciences is surveyed and examined, and it is comprehensive in its scope, from genomes to social behaviors. The editors explicitly state that the book is designed as "an introductory text for students of biology, behavior, and medicine," but it is hard to imagine any audience, interested in any fragment of neuroscience at any level of sophistication, that would not enjoy this book. The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or

7,563 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A predictive, inferential perspective on interoception: 'interoceptive inference' conceives of subjective feeling states (emotions) as arising from actively-inferred generative (predictive) models of the causes of interoceptive afferents.

1,104 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
06 May 2015-Neuron
TL;DR: Human neuroimaging studies indicate that surprisingly similar circuitry is activated by quite diverse pleasures, suggesting a common neural currency shared by all.

996 citations


Cites background from "The nature of feelings: evolutionar..."

  • ...related to the objective versus subjective faces of pleasure (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013; Kringelbach and Berridge, 2010; Schooler and Mauss, 2010; Winkielman et al., 2005)....

    [...]

  • ...…likely appeared first during evolution, with subjective affective reactions following in some species, via the evolution of more elaborate and hierarchical brain mesocorticolimbic circuitry to translate core ‘‘liking’’ reactions into conscious feelings of pleasure (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013)....

    [...]

  • ...Objective affective reactions likely appeared first during evolution, with subjective affective reactions following in some species, via the evolution of more elaborate and hierarchical brain mesocorticolimbic circuitry to translate core ‘‘liking’’ reactions into conscious feelings of pleasure (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013)....

    [...]

  • ...Some goals of affective neuroscience are to understand how brain mechanisms generate pleasures, and also displeasures, and eventually find more effective treatments for affective disorders (Anderson and Adolphs, 2014; Damasio and Carvalho, 2013; Haber and Knutson, 2010; Heller et al., 2013; Kringelbach and Berridge, 2010; Panksepp, 2011)....

    [...]

  • ...This two-pronged approach exploits a fundamental duality in hedonic processes, related to the objective versus subjective faces of pleasure (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013; Kringelbach and Berridge, 2010; Schooler and Mauss, 2010; Winkielman et al., 2005)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Embodied Predictive Interoception Coding model is introduced, which integrates an anatomical model of corticocortical connections with Bayesian active inference principles, to propose that agranular visceromotor cortices contribute to interoception by issuing interoceptive predictions.
Abstract: Intuition suggests that perception follows sensation and therefore bodily feelings originate in the body. However, recent evidence goes against this logic: interoceptive experience may largely reflect limbic predictions about the expected state of the body that are constrained by ascending visceral sensations. In this Opinion article, we introduce the Embodied Predictive Interoception Coding model, which integrates an anatomical model of corticocortical connections with Bayesian active inference principles, to propose that agranular visceromotor cortices contribute to interoception by issuing interoceptive predictions. We then discuss how disruptions in interoceptive predictions could function as a common vulnerability for mental and physical illness.

996 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article begins with the structure and function of the brain, and from there deduce what the biological basis of emotions might be, and concludes that the answer is a brain-based, computational account called the theory of constructed emotion.
Abstract: The science of emotion has been using folk psychology categories derived from philosophy to search for the brain basis of emotion. The last two decades of neuroscience research have brought us to the brink of a paradigm shift in understanding the workings of the brain, however, setting the stage to revolutionize our understanding of what emotions are and how they work. In this article, we begin with the structure and function of the brain, and from there deduce what the biological basis of emotions might be. The answer is a brain-based, computational account called the theory of constructed emotion.

771 citations


Cites background from "The nature of feelings: evolutionar..."

  • ...…the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, through the nucleus of the solitary tract, the parabrachial nucleus, the periaqueductal gray and finally to the ventral posterior thalamus, before arriving in granular layer IV of the primary interoceptive insular cortex (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013; Craig, 2015)....

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  • ...Viscerosensory prediction errors arise from physiologic changes within the internal milieu and ascend via vagal and small diameter afferents in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, through the nucleus of the solitary tract, the parabrachial nucleus, the periaqueductal gray and finally to the ventral posterior thalamus, before arriving in granular layer IV of the primary interoceptive insular cortex (Damasio and Carvalho, 2013; Craig, 2015)....

    [...]

References
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Book
01 Jan 2013
Abstract: 1. The integrated wholeness of the organism must be one of the foundation stones of motivation theory. 2. The hunger drive (or any other physiological drive) was rejected as a centering point or model for a definitive theory of motivation. Any drive that is somatically based and localizable was shown to be atypical rather than typical in human motivation. 3. Such a theory should stress and center itself upon ultimate or basic goals rather than partial or superficial ones, upon ends rather than means to these ends. Such a stress would imply a more central place for unconscious than for conscious motivations. 4. There are usually available various cultural paths to the same goal. Therefore conscious, specific, local-cultural desires are not as fundamental in motivation theory as the more basic, unconscious goals. 5. Any motivated behavior, either preparatory or consummatory, must be understood to be a channel through which many basic needs may be simultaneously expressed or satisfied. Typically an act has more than one motivation. 6. Practically all organismic states are to be understood as motivated and as motivating. 7. Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of prepotency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives. 8. Lists of drives will get us nowhere for various theoretical and practical reasons. Furthermore any classification of motivations

18,001 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
20 Sep 1999
TL;DR: Experimental results show that robust object recognition can be achieved in cluttered partially occluded images with a computation time of under 2 seconds.
Abstract: An object recognition system has been developed that uses a new class of local image features. The features are invariant to image scaling, translation, and rotation, and partially invariant to illumination changes and affine or 3D projection. These features share similar properties with neurons in inferior temporal cortex that are used for object recognition in primate vision. Features are efficiently detected through a staged filtering approach that identifies stable points in scale space. Image keys are created that allow for local geometric deformations by representing blurred image gradients in multiple orientation planes and at multiple scales. The keys are used as input to a nearest neighbor indexing method that identifies candidate object matches. Final verification of each match is achieved by finding a low residual least squares solution for the unknown model parameters. Experimental results show that robust object recognition can be achieved in cluttered partially occluded images with a computation time of under 2 seconds.

16,989 citations

Book
01 Jan 1890
TL;DR: For instance, the authors discusses the multiplicity of the consciousness of self in the form of the stream of thought and the perception of space in the human brain, which is the basis for our work.
Abstract: Arguably the greatest single work in the history of psychology. James's analyses of habit, the nature of emotion, the phenomenology of attention, the stream of thought, the perception of space, and the multiplicity of the consciousness of self are still widely cited and incorporated into contemporary theoretical accounts of these phenomena.

14,049 citations

Book
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: The authors argued that rational decisions are not the product of logic alone - they require the support of emotion and feeling, drawing on his experience with neurological patients affected with brain damage, Dr Damasio showed how absence of emotions and feelings can break down rationality.
Abstract: Descartes' Error offers the scientific basis for ending the division between mind and body. Antonio Damasio contends that rational decisions are not the product of logic alone - they require the support of emotion and feeling. Drawing on his experience with neurological patients affected with brain damage, Dr Damasio shows how absence of emotions and feelings can break down rationality. He also offers a new perspective on what emotions and feelings actually are: a direct view of our own body states; a link between the body and its survival-oriented regulation on the one hand, and consciousness on the other. Written as a conversation between the author and an imaginary listener, Descartes' Error leads us to conclude that human organisms are endowed from their very beginning with a spirited passion for making choices, which the social mind can then use to build rational behaviour.

9,648 citations

Book
01 Jun 1981
TL;DR: The principles of neural science as mentioned in this paper have been used in neural networks for the purpose of neural network engineering and neural networks have been applied in the field of neural networks, such as:
Abstract: Principles of neural science , Principles of neural science , کتابخانه دانشگاه علوم پزشکی و خدمات بهداشتی درمانی کرمان

8,872 citations