It often astonishes me how many of my colleagues continue to argue that emotions are no more than simple reflexes that probably do not even exist in animals. Yet anyone who spends much time with animals constantly observes sophisticated reasoning and highly developed emotions. And it is difficult to try and reduce the sometimes devastating consequences of emotional disturbances in people with mood disorders to a series of reflexes.
Fortunately the understanding of the neurobiology of emotion has taken enormous strides in recent years. Jaak Panksepp, long regarded as one of the leaders in the field, gives us a wonderfully readable account of some of the neurological machinery that helps organize emotion in ALL mammals. For it is becoming clear that emotion is present in every mammal so far studied: even mice show evidence of emotion.
Panksepp includes discussion of arousal and of sleep: this one is of particular importance in the light of the increasing body of clinical work indicating that many mood disorders are secondary to disturbances of sleep, rather than sleep disorders being a consequence of mood disorders. He goes on to discuss systems involved in pleasure and fear, the sources of some forms of anger and rage. He is very good on the neural control of sexuality in animals, as well as the subtle emotions involved maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. The importance of these neurological systems in human beings remains an open question: humans are so astonishingly complex and have so many "extra" dimensions on their behavioral actions, that it is probably unwise to try and reduce these complex behaviors to the firing of groups of neurons.
This focus on the neurobiology of affect is welcome, though it is valuable to remember that emotion can also be conceptualized as irreducible psychological and social functions.
Although this book is eight years old, it remains an excellent foundation and context in which to place more recent books and papers.
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Top reviews from other countries
Cee Jay
Heavy on the Science
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2020
Cee Jay
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2020
I listened to Panksepp on the Brain Science podcast, and YouTube lectures, which enabled me to get the gist.
I now get it, and it's a book that I'll be dipping into forever I think, it's fascinating.
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Schrodinger's Kitty
Couldn't keep it down. Thank you.
Reviewed in India on June 4, 2020