Contrary
to what had been stipulated by the first behaviorism, animal
organisms cannot learn just anything with the sufficient stimulating effort,
for the flexibility of response is conditioned to the design of the
physiological architecture. This design has an evolutionary origin, which is equivalent to say that its
structure is adapted to life under certain repetitive conditions, thus, it
makes sense that these reiterated processes are performed by the very same
organs, and within these, by the same cellular groups. The thesis of Neural
Darwinism is based on these intuitive suppositions which
the physiological investigation confirms. The dynamics of the biophysical conditions,
the interactions between geology and biota produce a scenario whose unstable equilibrium
has forced adaptation, but only within a relatively narrow margin of possible responses,
as it is shown by the devastating balance of the five massive extinctions that life on the planet has traversed. It is
interesting to observe that the responses of life to each of these destructions
has been very limited, in fact, it has been fundamentally the same, for life’s
strategy consists on adapting its basic functions to the environment in order to be able to repeat them time and again, be
this the environment of the Jurassic or that of our times. Such basic functions
are, therefore, the same, and have to do with acquiring energy, with life
maintenance and the ensuring of reproduction, for which different strategies
will be followed that, by having been successfully repeated, will generate more
complex physiological routines. Primary emotional neural systems have this simple origin, despite all the
complexity of concurrence of processes that have made
possible the development of life up to this point. If we expect to understand
emotions, we
cannot lose sight of this principle of simplicity, which is none other than the
principle of organic homeostasis.
Emotional neural systems can be classified in two general groups, depending on
whether their functions are closer to acquiring nourishment and maintaining life or to reproduction. The
first group includes the systems of self-stimulation or seeking, of
aggression or rage and that of fear, and are
emotions that we could call of individual range, although, rage and fear have
collective repercussions. Those of the second group have a collective range,
and are the sexual emotion, the maternal, the
social and the ludic.
The
subcortical neural system of the vital or appetitive motivation, or of
the organic self-stimulation, which
could also be called emotion of seeking, is the brain function that drives the organism to
investigate and control the environment for the development of its metabolic activities.[1]
The system is designed to respond to new situations of the organism’s
experience,
focalizing the sensory-motor systems of the animal in tasks of approach, search
and, in general, of exploratory actions related to new phenomena (especially if
they are related to rewards), as well as to predictively respond in the future
to cases of vital threat, based on the clues and information obtained from its
activity. In this sense, it is a system of treatment and valuation for survival environments,[2]
thus not limiting the actions of the animal to the immediate action, but on the
contrary, depending on the species, it can include different activities of
acquisition and gathering of subsistence means, expressed in purely automatic
actions, whether those of ants or rodents who store nourishment for winter, or in pondered human economic savings plans.[3]
The
system responds unconditionally to a loss of homeostasis as well as to environmental stimuli of diverse relevance for survival, and
mediates in the learning of appetitive behaviors,[4]
that is, it functions as a regulator of activity, at the same time that it
provides the organism’s activity with unity and coherence by participating in
the formation of memories. It has
been experimentally confirmed that animals become anxious, and show expectations in
relation to different signs and stimuli that had been previously associated
with the activation and deactivation of the system.[5]
The emotion of seeking is appeased
once the objective has been attained, but if it is not possible to satisfy the
goal, animals will seek alternative consummations, which can partially
alleviate the symptoms of an excessive appetitive activation.[6]
If
instead of understanding this system in cerebral topological terms we do it in
neurochemical terms, the emotion of seeking can be
characterized by a dopamine system linked to neuronal motor stimulations,
a system which, as Panksepp points out, is possibly the exaptation or
evolutionary functional reconversion of other more ancient
neurochemical systems, based on epinephrine and norepinephrine, also
responsible for the general stimulation of neurons.[7]
It has been confirmed that dopamine plays a fundamental role in learning for
the insect’s brain,[8]
something that allows us to submerge the roots of the emotion of seeking into
the oldest stages of the animal brain. When the self-stimulation system is excessively active, it can be the
cause of diverse forms of cognitive errors, in which causal mechanisms may be
traced where there are merely correlations.[9]
In human beings, the over-activity of the dopamine system at a mesolimbic level seems to be linked to behavioral
processes diagnosed as schizophrenic.[10]
It is interesting to observe the link between the cognitive errors that occur
due an excess of self-stimulation and magical causation. As
pointed out earlier, magical causation operated under the double principle
of similarity and solidarity. The
latter causally linked the objects of a scenario by the mere fact of being in that
scenario, analogously to what happens with the causal conceptualization of the
schizophrenic. This is
particularly relevant if we take into account the presence of drugs in the
environments of magical causation, for the psychosis induced by
stimulating drugs is analogous to schizophrenia, up to the point that we could
say that it is a drug induced schizophrenia, and that, in fact, there are hallucinogenic
substances, like mescaline, which have a molecular structure very similar to
that of dopamine, producing a similar type of schizophrenia.[11]
On the other hand, experimental evidence has been found which relates the
schizophrenic processes with the neuropsychological firings
that occur in the activation processes of the seeking system and REM[12]
dream states, something which would link the functioning of this system with
the animistic theses of Tylor,
corroborating them.
I
leave for the next chapter the examination of emotions in relation to the narratives of traditional
mythology, for my
intention here is to give a general vision on the functionality of the
emotional systems in animal behavior. However,
it is interesting to highlight the connection that the emotion of seeking has
with schizophrenia and the different forms of drug induced
psychoses (characteristic of diverse forms of the transcendental experience),
for it offers an fascinating perspective about the process of myth formation, and in particular, on the process
of inspiration for their composition and on the concept of liminal mimesis
already dealt with. From a neurochemical standpoint, the experience of the shaman, or that
of the prophet, whether
induced by drugs or by an internal imbalance in the production of
neurotransmitters, is identical
to the experience of a psychotic person. In
fact, as James noticed, the pathological features of the
religious leaders have contributed frequently to endow
them with especial authority and influence over their followers.[13]
An excessive stimulation of the seeking emotional system, which prompts us to activate ourselves
in order to maintain the vital homeostasis, has
driven us likewise –after the hallucinatory experiences of some individuals-, to establish
structures of order in relation to the environment that do not have an intersubjective component,
but are merely the liminal experience of a single person, or at most of a group
of similar pathological persons. We encounter here a type of psychological
illusion of a wider scope than the one detected by Kant in relation to pure reason. The
dialectic illusion in Kantian rational psychology occurred when we confounded an idea of reason
–that of a pure intelligence- with a
thinking being in general,[14]
by deducing from an hypostatized property of our thinking experience, a being
which fulfills such property,[15]
whereas the illusion produced by an excess of stimulus of the dopamine system connects by magical causation and erroneous intuitions the elements of an
scenario (or several) of experience and its objects. Our biological constitution drives us to create structures of
order that do not necessarily correspond with phenomena, but even once we have
detected the non-correspondence, we continue to maintain them and to ground our
vital objectives and our social structures on such entelechies, negating
experience as a mere illusory veil that covers a deeper relation, the one provided
by magical causation under the influence of dopamine. The
difference with Kantian transcendental illusion is that this mythic illusion
would be epistemologically avoidable, and we would not need to maintain
structures based on the experiences of a group of schizophrenics. However, the
efficacy of animistic and supernatural hypotheses, which have served us perfectly as
regulative principles of the group and explanatory principles of the world
during the better part of our development as homo sapiens, make
the possible cognitive errors less relevant, because from a
biological point of view, life’s goal is simply to continue living. The
problems have arisen when we have tried to maintain at the same time the
archaic myths and the myths of science which make possible the economic relationships of modern life.
Out of
the emotional neural systems that mammals share with reptiles: seeking, rage, fear and sex, it is
precisely that of seeking the one which has the most general range for the animal
organism, because unlike the plant, it cannot obtain what it needs for its
survival without a minimum general control of spatial
movement. The
search in which it is translated the behavior of a self-stimulation system, is not as much a more or less
rudimentary cognitive form as the neural function upon which the
general animal cognition has its ground. This neural system is
activated in a threefold manner: to regulate homeostasis loses, by external
stimuli, or by
signs that are associated with incentives.[16]
The latter implies a form of learning and adaptation, whereas the others can be
seen as previous stages of this last one. In the three cases, the system
activates the organism so it relates to the external world according to some
physiological end, it specifies a direction for action as
well as a modus operandi. In this
neural system, we can observe the evolutionary process itself, from the more mechanical actions programmed in the organism, which are
activated due to an homeostatic imbalance, to those conditioned by an external
stimulus, or
those conditioned by experience. The
itinerary goes from the automatic program to anticipation, a gradation of
intelligence[17]
which traverses the entire emotional system.
A second
emotional neural system is the one that corresponds to
the phenomenon of aggression by the frustration of a physiological function or an expectation. Not every animal
shows aggressive behaviors, as in the case of mollusks, for example, and not
every type of aggression corresponds with activations of the same neural
system. The predator is not angry with its prey, nor do the competitions for
reproductive advantages -which in many cases are limited to ritual displays so
that ultimately the female may decide-, have the same quality of violence than the one which arises due to a
frustration in nourishment or to the defense that an animal makes of its
life. Panksepp distinguishes three forms of aggression:
predatory, reproductive and the one that arises due to frustration.[18]
The first one is linked to the neural circuits of motivation or seeking, the second to the sexual circuits, and the third, which is due to
frustration, and corresponds with what we commonly call anger or rage, is
linked to a neural circuit of its own, different from the other two at the
level of the stimulus,
although with the possibility of being linked to them depending on the
complexity of the relationships of experience.[19]
The
evolutionary advantages of an affective system that incites
aggression when expectations are frustrated, or when the
options of an adequate development of the metabolic functions -whether for
hunger or pain in general- are directly frustrated, are
obvious. In fact, the existence of types of aggression linked to other
emotional systems corroborates the fundamental
importance of aggression in living organisms, at the same time that it poses
the question about the ability of these seven emotional systems to explain satisfactorily human and animal behavior. Could
we deal better with the emotion of rage from a system that were to include the three
systems that cover the different types of aggression: that of motivation, the
sexual and that of aggressive frustration? A
complete treatment of rage –as it also happened with the dopamine system-, requires the inclusion of the
cortical forms of emotion that the human being has
developed in its evolution, as well as the interactions of all the emotional neural systems in their mutual conditioning functions.
However, the advantages of a previous separate treatment of each of the
systems, with their own neurochemical circuits, are evident, for we count with
primitive emotional functions which give us the syntax and the
semantics of human and animal affections. Thus,
for instance, the correct emotional sequence is not the one that leads from hunger
to rage, but that which goes from the vital motivation of searching for
nourishment through the frontal and temporal cortical expectation that evaluates the possibility of
obtaining it, to the subsequent frustration of such an expectation, which
produces rage. If rage is an emotion that entails a non-pleasurable
effect for the animal, which can be deduced from the
ease with which lab animals learn to disconnect by themselves the cerebral
electric stimulations that produce rage in them,[20]
and if the activation of this emotion implies a loss of homeostasis with a high
energetic consumption for the organism, rage must be due to a general defense
mechanism not limited to a specific scenario and thus producing contradictory
effects; for instance, when the frustration is the consequence of an alimentary
expectation, rage behavior, by consuming more energy works against the very
same homeostasis that pretends to reestablish. The neural system of aggression
by frustration seems to be, foremost, a general complementary defense system of
flight, and similarly produces homeostatic imbalances that allow quick responses to
threats to the integrity of the organism in limit situations. On the other
hand, the usefulness of the joint functioning of the system of aggression with
the system of seeking for learning purposes, given the non-pleasurable[21]
character of rage, seems to be a sound assumption.
In these
considerations on the emotion of rage or anger, we are
not including a whole series of processes in which it is already at work a
reasoned aggression mediated by conceptual constructions of
different kinds. In fact, what has been said so far, applies both to humans and
animals. In the
experimental cases in which an animal has been stimulated in the system of
rage, its responses have always been a direct attack against any potential
danger that the animal could identify.[22]
Thus, in its primitive form, this emotion is the activation of an instinctive
and destructive system of self-defense whose domain is not limited to a direct
vital threat, but it includes any threat that may restrict the vital capacity
of the organism. Analogously to the system of self-stimulation, it
specifies a direction for action and a modus
operandi, and for this reason it implies a type of non-declarative,
non-verbalizable, knowledge[23]
-but knowledge nonetheless- at the organism’s disposal. However, unlike the
system of self-stimulation, the knowledge of the organism is not grounded over
this function, but instead, this second system functions as a tool which
strengthens the former.
For its
part, fear -like the rest of basic emotions- admits
a difficult definition from our cortical or reasoning language, and we
have to refer to a cerebral topology and to a specific set of neurochemical substances in order to define it. Most animals, from
insects to humans, experience fear and even though not all may produce a
primary consciousness associated with experience, they know how to behave like an organism with
fear (or with rage),
although no one has taught them how to do so, that is to say, they will exhibit
certain protocols of behavior whose result is to avoid the situation in
which they find themselves. Experimentation shows that in the mammal brain exists a specific neural system in which the
signals of what we call anxiety and fear are processed, which can be activated
through internal or external stimuli, to
which it responds unconditionally, genetically or after specific experiences,
presenting a collection of symptoms related to the autonomic nervous system which includes intestinal problems, diarrhea,
urinary incontinence, tachycardia, dryness of mouth or an increase in
respiratory rate.[24]
The responses and specific stimuli that produce fear are genetically
conditioned by species, according to the different evolutionary scenarios of each of them.[25]
Therefore, the system of fear is programmed to respond to pain, or to
different environmental stimuli which alert of danger, but it also functions as
a selector of new inputs of learning (at a subcortical level) which serve to predict threats.[26]
In this sense, in the same way as rage, it functions as a cognitive enhancer of the self-stimulation system, as well as a tool for social cohesion,
insofar as it facilitates the formation of dominance hierarchies by reducing
confrontations between rival groups.
The
second group of emotions, of a
collective functional range, has reproduction as the main objective, even
though the physiological conditions of reproduction propitiate different
forms of cooperative relation which result in social organization, for which
different emotional systems are developed. In mammals, the
neural system that corresponds to the sexual emotion is different for males and females.
Each one is the development of a former evolutionary system found in fish and reptiles, from whose
neurochemical component, vasotocin, are
derived –by the change of an amino acid- mammalian vasopressin and oxytocin.[27]
Even though oxytocin and vasopressin brain circuits are the main substances that determine
sexual emotions, these are only two neurochemical
components of a longer list which is beginning to be elaborated in affective
neuroscience, to
which it would have to be added the luteinizing hormone (LH) and acetylcholine as well.[28]
It is interesting to observe that in males the production of
arginine-vasopressin is linked to testosterone production, and that there is a direct
relationship between the production of the former and aggression.[29]
This form of aggression is different from the one accompanying the production
of substance P in
the case of rage, and its
evolutionary origin seems to obey to the competition
between males for the transmission of their genes. The coordination
and potentiation of the conjoined action of both systems would
occur obviously only in the case in which frustration for sexual reasons may take place, which in animals seems to be limited to ritual encounters, but
in humans, with the intervention of the different cognitive processes, would generate a combined and more
complex type of rage, in fact something more similar to a secondary form of
emotion like the one we call jealousy.
The link between sexual emotion and violence does not only occur in
the human terms postulated by Freud, of
repression and civilization, but it is characteristic of the reproductive
competition in mammals, a competition in which questions of social organization
are also resolved: to ensure the continuity of the genes is a violent and competitive activity, as it
is to ensure the continuity of the group’s structure. The different types of
aggression are, therefore, social tools no less than individual tools, combined
and directed by social emotions, whose objective is the continuity of the
group. The fundamental animal bonds are those of kinship, originated by sex,
and in mammals, as a consequence of the long duration of breastfeeding, they
will condition the social homeostasis to longer cycles which require a more complex
collective structure.
On the
other hand, closely linked to the sexual emotion, we find the emotion of mother care. This
emotion is genetically conditioned in the brain of every female mammal, in the sense that it
has its own neural circuit in which the actions of offspring care are
processed, whereas the equivalent paternal care does not enjoy a neural system
of its own, but it is a learned behavior. On the
other hand it must be taken into account that the brain’s gender is not simply
masculine or feminine, for there is a gradation between these two poles according
to the greater masculinization that the brain may have received in the uterus.[30]
In this sense, we can speak of brains with a higher quantity of arginine-vasopressin circuits and of brains with a higher quantity
of oxytocin circuits, being the latter better predisposed
for the emotion of mother care. This emotion is present in reptiles but is much
shorter and superficial, linked to egg laying, and in this case to vasotocin hormone.[31]
Neuro-chemically it consists on the joint action of oxytocin, prolactin, and
endorphins, thus
being fundamentally a circuit of pleasure. It is
interesting to notice that the emotion of mother care in the feminine brain
occupies the same preoptic area as in males does the regulation of sex, that
is, there is an emotional divergence upon a common neural place, implying
the deficiency of a merely topological approach to the comprehension of the
emotional circuits, and the need for a complementation
with the functional understanding.
There is
a neural circuit in which it is regulated the fundamental emotion of the social
bond between mammals. Until
some decades ago, behaviorist psychologists were proposing social models in
which the link between members of a group proceeded from a reinforcement in experience due to the benefits in nourishment and shelter obtained through the collective
medium, even though, now we know that there is a neural system localizable in
the cingulate cortex, the
periaqueductal area, the
dorsomedial thalamus, the
ventral septal area, the
preoptic area and the nucleus of the stria terminalis, which is responsible for the stress and pain that animals feel when they are separated from the group.[32]
This socio-organic circuit is curiously situated in the same
brain areas where the sexual neural circuits and the maternal emotion are also found, and is very near as
well to brain areas that are directly linked to pain processing.[33]
The first coincidence shows the close neural relationship that exists between
the basic emotions of sex, maternal care, and
sociability, responsible –due to the characteristics of mammalian reproduction- for the forms that the
collective association will take. The second coincidence points towards an
evolutionary origin of this system based on other more
basic systems of pain.[34]
The
social emotion in its negative aspect (or of separation in
relation to the group) is responsible of a type of stress that is especially intense in younger animals, a
stress that disappears when the animal returns to the group or when it is injected
with some sort of opioid compound.[35]
At a neuro-chemical level, the positive aspect of this emotion, the experience of social bonds, is a process mediated by
endorphins and oxytocin, like it
occurred in the maternal emotion, playing this last neurotransmitter an active role in the formation of collective
memories.[36]
The phenomenon is especially relevant in relation to myths, for in
them it is placed the explicit memory of a community as identity narrative. It is
curious to notice that the collective memories of a group, their identity narratives are
physiologically favored both in its formation and maintenance.
The last
one of the emotional systems that Panksepp expounds is that of the ludic emotion. The
variety of actions that we identify with the concept is one of the reasons why
we still lack a good understanding of its structure, for the multiple
concurrent activation of abilities that play entails hinders its isolation as a
system.[37]
Thus, for instance, if damage is inflicted upon the caudate nuclei and the
putamen of a rodent’s brain, the
animal will not only lose all desire to play, but also its appetite as well, its curiosity, and its general willingness
to move,[38]
that is, it will affect also the dopamine circuit of seeking. However, it is known that
the parafascicular nuclei (which also participate in pain perception) and the
posterior thalamic nuclei, promote
ludic behavior in animals, whereas
neither the neocortex nor the cingulate cortex intervene in play
desire.[39]
The desire for play and amusement are reduced by all kinds of corporal
unbalances, hunger, sleepiness or illness, as well as by oxytocin, opioid antagonists, or the excess of these, in fact,
opioid excess reduces the activity of all the emotional systems.[40]
A symptom of the activation of the circuit of play is laughter (although this symptom can correspond to
different n-ary emotions), a
respiratory movement in humans, not learned and of sub-cortical origin, that communicates the ludic emotion, and which seems to be present as well
in other mammals, like
chimpanzees or dogs.[41]
The emotion of play in mammals is especially important during infancy, where it
starts being a kind of relationship with the mother to later become a
relationship with other members of the group.[42]
Play, in its
most basic animal form, seems to be a way of socialization able to create
intense bonds with the group, that are broader than the sexual or the maternal from which it seems to have been generated.
The emotion of play communicates sociability, and is incompatible with fear and rage,
generating at an individual level a parenthesis in the emotional emergencies of the first group (seeking, rage,
fear), which by liberating stress operates directly upon homeostatic balance. Play can be linked to the emotion of seeking, of
hunting in particular, and its cognitive dimension at a pre-cortical level seems indubitable to the extent that it
trains the different organic systems for survival. In
humans, the cognitive dimension of play is evident, in fact, there is a clear
parallelism between calculi (logic or mathematics) and
games (especially those that do not consist on a
great display of physical activity), with respect to its self-contained
character and the explicitation of some rules, outside of which the game ends,
thus entering in the domain of other neural systems. We will
revisit this emotion in more detail.
In this brief
exposition of the fundamental characteristics of the primary emotions, I have
separated four of them, the social, the sexual, the
maternal, and the
ludic, with
the goal of emphasizing the link that they have in relation to collective
behavior.
However, the other three also show a clear social functionality. In the case of
humans as it is in the case of great apes, there is no single emotion without a
collective content, for our entire life is always developed within a specific
social environment. The
seven basic emotional systems make sense psychologically when they
are interpreted as an interactive neurological set that binds behavior and the
homeostasis of the organism to the social and biophysical environment. It is
possible that a future understanding of the neurological processes will add
another neural system to these seven here exposed, or it is even possible that
the circuit of play, or some other, may not be independent from the rest. We are
not dealing with axiomatic systems in which the independence of the postulates
may be proved by means of mechanical processes of reasoning,
moreover, the emotional processes and the behavioral responses that
are derived from them can cross their field of action, as in the cases of the
maternal and social emotions, or the sexual and the maternal, or the
social in relation to all the others. In any case, the model of the basic
emotions, or any
possible substitute, will have theoretical interest insofar as it may serve to
organize and interpret the psychological investigation, and above all, insofar
as the emotions thus organized may be sufficient to account for the emotional life of mammals and of man. For the human case, the model of
basic emotions will be sufficient if it is capable of explaining how the
complex or n-ary[43]
emotions are produced, even though the superior limit of the model is
determined by the extension that implies the introduction of symbolization and language. The
most relevant issue of this combined model of Neural Darwinism and the basic emotional systems is that it establishes a paradigm for
the understanding of mammal behavior which is perfectly integrated with the
cognitive models for the development of human language.
The link occurs when we treat the seven neural systems like a unique emotional system, which operates as a controller of the
organism’s homeostasis in relation to its environment. The joint system shows
more complex properties than the neural systems in isolation, for the different
neurotransmitter substances that constitute them show with
respect to each other diverse relations of enablement, antagonism, and
neutrality. If we add the temporal differences of the effects that they have,
we will have a general framework of conditions of possibility in which we can
begin to understand the n-ary emotions, formed by combination of the basic ones
and by the intervention of other neocortical cognitive processes. Obviously, not all of
them are combinable, nor have the same durations: the emotion of play is not
compatible with that of fear, and
rage does not require an activation as long as the
maternal emotion. For its part, the circuit of rage
produces a homeostatic imbalance that cannot be maintained by an
organism safely above a relative short time span. This system has a specific
functionality outside of which it is not only useless, but counterproductive.
How then can we explain human emotions like hatred or revenge, in
which a pattern of aggression is maintained during a much longer time span
than in the case of a mere rage attack? From the concurrence of the more
complex brain processes of the neocortical systems, i.e. with the inclusion of reasoning
processes for emotional decision making that introduce a temporal
buffer, between stimuli and responses, which does not exist in primary
emotions. This temporal buffer can simply obey to the differences in tempo
amongst emotions: it is postponed or anticipated based on the goals imposed by
emotional programs, being in many cases expanded to
trans-mundane vital scenarios, as in
the case of religious emotions. The names we use for the n-ary
emotions are ambiguous, and similarly as what it occurs with the names of
colors, we would need to add a referent (objectual in the case of colors, and
an scenario in the case of emotions) in order to make the concept of the emotion precise.[44]
N-ary emotions, such as hatred, can involve different neural systems in
different scenarios. There can be hatred propitiated by a rivalry in the
competition for resources, or hatred unleashed by a sexual rivalry. In the first case, we would be
speaking of an emotion which includes rage and seeking, besides possible
emotional anticipations and delays, which are already
n-ary emotions, whereas in the second case, the emotion of rage merges with
that of sex, besides doing it with the corresponding anticipations and delays.
If emotions have evolutionarily determined the ever more
complex behaviors that we call intelligence, they
have had to harmonize the organism’s homeostatic interests in situations that include short and
long terms. The emotional systems of maternity and the socio-organic unity are clearly long term biological protocols, they give a general framework for
the group to which the rest have to accommodate, insofar as the life of
the group is more important than that of its individual members. The experience is always of clusters of simultaneous emotions and sequences of these clusters, processes in which emotions
are limited and conditioned amongst themselves, by means of the compatibilities
of their action domains and the cognitive advantages that the anticipations and the
delays implicate. The reprocessing of the emotional inputs from the cortical system includes tasks of selection from the
working memory,
remaining outside the system the inferences of competing inputs,[45]
processes in which the emotional activation is modulated from the protocols of
the other emotions, as well as from cognitive deliberations. Input blockings
allow the deferring of responses, in the same way as the anticipations of those
responses allow their processing by means of substitutive memory
representations of the input. In this manner, the valuation system of the organism can become more
effective for survival, at the
same time that it increases the memory capacity, which allows better inductions
and a wider catalogue of responses against the vital scenarios.
[2] Cf. Ikemoto, Satoshi; Panksepp, Jaak. The role
of nucleus accumbens dopamine in motivated behavior: a unifying
interpretation with special reference to reward-seeking. Elsevier. Brain Research Reviews 31. 1999. p.p.6-41.
p.33. Web.
[3] In fact, according to the explanation of Keynes of
the price of money, a main factor for the functioning of urban communities, the
price of money depends as much on the marginal effectiveness of the capital as
on the psychological tendency to saving. (See John M. Keynes. The General Theory of Employment, Interest
and Money. Harcourt Brace Company. San Diego, New York and London. 1964.
p.165.)
[5] Ibid.
[6] See Panksepp. Op. Cit. Chapter 6: Seeking systems and anticipatory states of the nervous system. p.p.144-163.
[7] Cf. Panksepp. Ibid. p.109-110. He offers an evolutionary table of the
catecholamine systems of neural activation that
ranges from epinephrine, responsible for metabolic activation, and
norepinephrine, responsible for sensory activation, to dopamine, responsible for motor activation.
[8] See The Role of
Dopamine in Drosophila Larval Classical Olfactory Conditioning. Mareike Schelko, Dennis Pauls, Kyung-Han An, Reinhard F.
Stocker, Andreas Thum. Plos-One. July
12, 2009. Web.
[10] See Dopamine in
schizophrenia: A Review and
Reconceptualization. Davis, Kenneth
L.; Kahn, René S.; Ko, Grant; Davidson, Michael, The American Journal of
Psychiatry. Vol.148 (11), Nov 1991.
p.p.1474-1486. Web. Also Guillin, Oliver; Laurelle, Marc: Neurobiology of Dopamine in Schizophrenia. Cellscience Review.
Vol.2. No.2. 2005. Web.
[11] See Solomon H. Snyder. Drogas y Cerebro (Drugs and Brain). Prensa Científica. Barcelona 1992.
p.p.146-159, and 208-217.
[13] Cf. William James. The Variety of
Religious Experience. Collier Books. New York. 1961. p.25. James uses as an
example the personality of George Fox, founder of the Quaker religion, whose
psychosis is evident in his writings.
[15] From a property we deduce an extension for it, and
then we specify it into a particular entity:
Ǝ Pure-Intelligence → Ǝx Pure-Intelligence X → A is
Pure-Intelligence.
[17] The finality that operates in the dopamine-catecholamine system is the same finality
developed symbolically, that operates in any cognitive process, and
therefore, in scientific theories, for we can characterize a physical scientific
theory by its ability to explain and predict a phenomenon. To predict is a form
of anticipation: in every anticipation there is a more or less rudimentary form
of intelligence.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid. p.194.
[21] I will use here the notion of pleasure that
neuroscience employs: any
stimulus that informs
the brain of the
potential that such a stimulus has to return the body to its homeostatic balance. See
Panksepp. Ibid. p.182.
[23] By non-declarative
cognitive procedure I understand that which is linked to non-declarative or implicit
memories. Non-declarative memories are information
to which we do not have a conscious direct access. These memories can be of four
kinds: procedural memories, memories of the
perceptual system of representation, memories of classical
conditioning, and the memories of
non-associative learning. Procedural memory is the
information about the motor and cognitive mappings, and it is processed in the
basal ganglia and the cerebellum. The memory of the perceptual system of representation is the
information which anticipates to the processes of perception (by means of
previous mappings) and it is processed in the perceptual and associative cortex. The memory of classical conditioning is the
information about the conditioned responses between two mappings, and it is
processed in the motor cortex. Lastly, the memory of non-associative learning is the information
about the processes of habituation and sensitization, and it is processed in
the reflex pathways. See the model presented by Gazzaniga, Michael S., Ivry,
Richard B., Mangun George R.; Cognitive
Neuroscience. The Biology of the Mind. Ed. Cit. p.p.312-361.
[25] Cf. Arne Öhman, Anders Flykt and Daniel Lundqvist. Unconscious Emotion. In Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion. Ed.
Cit. p.322.
[27] Ibid. p.230.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid. p.p.246-247. In mammals, masculinity emerges from femininity. The initially
feminine brain is masculinized
in the uterus due to the secretion of testosterone and its
conversion into estrogens. The feminine brain protects itself from the maternal estrogens
which, otherwise, would masculinize the brain. See Panksepp. Op. Cit. p.225.
[32] Ibid. p.p.262-270.
[33] Ibid. p.p.267.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid. p.p.226-274.
[36] Ibid. p.p.272-273.
[37] Ibid. p.p.291.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid. p.p.293-294.
[42] Ibid. p.281.
[43] I will call n-ary, or of n degree,
to the emotions that are a
mixture or a derivation of the basic emotions.
[44] Like it occurs for example with the colors, blue,
green, red, grey and brown. In fact, the electromagnetic waves form a continuum
which our perception reduces to a
high number of discrete
instances.
[45] Cf. Kevin N. Ochsner, Silvia A. Bunge, James J. Gross, John
D.E. Gabrieli. Rethinking Feelings: An
fMRI Study on the Cognitive Regulation of Emotion. In Social Neuroscience. Ed. Cit. p.p.253-267.
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