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Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (Series in Affective Science) By Jaak Panksepp ( Oxford University Press, USA )
Release Date: 2004-09-30
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List Price: $52.50
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Product Description
Some investigators have argued that emotions, especially animal emotions, are illusory concepts outside the realm of scientific inquiry. However, with advances in neurobiology and neuroscience, researchers are demonstrating that this position is wrong as they move closer to a lasting understanding of the biology and psychology of emotion. In Affective Neuroscience, Jaak Panksepp provides the most up-to-date information about the brain-operating systems that organize the fundamental emotional tendencies of all mammals. Presenting complex material in a readable manner, the book offers a comprehensive summary of the fundamental neural sources of human and animal feelings, as well as a conceptual framework for studying emotional systems of the brain. Panksepp approaches emotions from the perspective of basic emotion theory but does not fail to address the complex issues raised by constructionist approaches. These issues include relations to human consciousness and the psychiatric implications of this knowledge. The book includes chapters on sleep and arousal, pleasure and fear systems, the sources of rage and anger, and the neural control of sexuality, as well as the more subtle emotions related to maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. Representing a synthetic integration of vast amounts of neurobehavioral knowledge, including relevant neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry, this book will be one of the most important contributions to understanding the biology of emotions since Darwins The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
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 revelatory text ( stanlipp )
i came across the author through a news article in the new york times about laughing rats. they had a link to his paper, which i found fascinating, so i ordered his book. i have no education in science, so i'm interested in the material but i haven't anything more than a high school science education from the mid-1960s, so all this molecular stuff is frightfully difficult for me to internalize. Some of this text is totally gobbledygook for me. There are so many italicized words and those bizarre brain locations i would have needed a pen and pad to actually locate the semantics of those sentences. but when i can get through all that, i find his hypothesis and evidence quite compelling. i've read le doux because he's very simple in his explanations, and in this text he is critized for his dismissal of the limbic system. this book's central thesis is that the "triune" brain represents an evolutionary progression, with primal emotions [anger, fear, "seeking"] an early aspect of nervous systems that conserves across all vertebrates. then he discusses the mroe social behaviors located within the old mammalian brain which we share with other mammals, etc. he provides a molecular description of neurochemical circuits. i am learning a lot, and there is much food for thought. i have no idea, i am not capable of judging whether or not his work and conclusions are valid. I can't tell you whether this book is good science or not. but to me this stuff is important to try to understand, and i think this book brings an important viewpoint to the table that i personally sympathize with and so i choose to accept it -- it fits my biases. i don't know what's true, but at this by reading this, at least i feel like i am beginning to understand the nature of what it really means to be human. so this book is central to my attemp to understand what it means to be alive.
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 A great survey text ( srdjan_miskovic )
Panksepp's "Affective Neuroscience" represents a landmark text in this field. It is a concise and readable summary of the relevant science. Panksepp does a laudable job of collecting a wealth of research data, providing a theoretical integration for that data and presenting all of this in an accessible form. The text is aimed at seriously minded students - the level of detail would be off-putting to the casual reader who might be better off with Joseph LeDoux's "Emotional Brain" (though that book is centered mainly around the emotion of fear).
The book is broken up into three main sections. The first section offers a general conceptual background (including a nice review of relevant neuroanatomy, neurochemistry and neurophysiology), along with an outline of a coherent research strategy. Panksepp calls for a research program that unites behavioral, cognitive/psychological and neuroscientific approaches in the study of mind. While the subject of emotion is capable of being approached from several different levels of analysis, he holds that the brain-systems level represents a `gold standard'. Thus the majority of research presented in "Affective Neuroscience" has been gathered from animal research utilizing brain stimulation (electrical and chemical), as well as lesion studies. Relevant data from human experiments is also presented. One of the major advantages of animal experiments is that they permit for the use of invasive techniques and thus for causal links to be established as opposed to the correlational nature of human imaging studies. Also, given the largely sub-neocortical nature of emotional processes and the remarkable prevalence of evolutionary homologues in the ancient divisions of the neuro-axis (homologues in neuroanatomy as well as in neurochemistry), generalizations can often be made from other mammals to humans.
Panksepp takes the not-so-controversial point of view that emotional packages are evolutionarily derived operating systems with their own intrinsic forms of organization. The kinds of environmental challenges faced by our mammalian ancestors (e.g., the need to avoid threats, to seek out mates) necessitated very specific modifications of the nervous system and the `discovery' of basic `emotion organ systems' via the blind algorithmic processes of natural selection. Panksepp feels that adequate neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological knowledge has been obtained to substantiate the delineation of several fundamental emotional operating systems (covered in the rest of the book): SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR and PANIC, along with the more pro-social circuits of LUST, CARE and PLAY. Most of these circuitries are hierarchically situated in brainstem, paleocortical and limbic areas. The identified emotional circuits have central integrating functions capable of recruiting and modulating various perceptual and cognitive resources `above' and visceral motor outputs `below'; they coordinate the full `orchestra' of emotional responses. Once activated each of these modules includes specific behavioral tendencies, modes of cognitive processing and subjective tone. The subjective tone represents a primodial form of consciousness that maps the relation between the self and the environment.
Panksepp insists that this ancient affective consciousness is not just a simple epiphenomenon of neural activity (i.e., not just froth) but that it has a definite functional role. He sees the importance of this affective experiential dimension as providing the organism with a kind of coding system (e.g., it codes objects/events as either biologically useful or harmful)which assists in the maintenance and calibration of long term behavioral strategies. For instance, he uses the example of how the subjective experience of the color red in primates is not just an epiphenomenon but that it actively controls behavior in so far as the color red can be used as a means of judging the ripeness of fruit.
In emphasizing the importance of these raw feels Panksepp takes a position that is contrary to majority opinion; many investigators view animals as automata and although they readily grant that they are fully capable of emotional expression they are more hesitant about granting them internal emotional experience. The point of contention is where to place affective experience along the vertical dimension of the neuro-axis. While some investigators (e.g., LeDoux, Damasio) essentially hold that elaboration of the phenomenological feel of emotional states does not occur below telencephalic areas, Panksepp claims that these `primary-process' raw feeling states are organized at midbrain levels.
While some portions of the book are highly speculative, Panksepp generally acknowledges this. The only way for a young science to progress is by being speculative and Panksepp proves himself to be an original thinker. One would think that this book provides a lot of useful information for evolutionary psychological theories . It approaches the themes explored by evolutionary psychology from a brain science perspective rather than from the cognitive/computational perspective. There are also plenty of clinical implications as Panksepp explores the way in which the major emotional circuitries can become dysregulated in psychiatric disorders. There are also interesting links with other theorists - for example, much like Damasio, Panksepp stresses the importance of the brain's body maps in the foundation of consciousness. An updated version of the text would be welcome.
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An Excellent Foundation, Despite Its Age ( rpettyus )
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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Good basic information for biologists interested in the Neuroscience of Emotions
The information in Affective Neuroscience covers all information from a evolutionary perspective including literature from birds and mammals. In every case human responses, regions of the brain, etc. are the same or very similar. One of the most interesting inclusions is the information about mental disorders associated with improper functions of the receptors described. The synthesis of material is very good, although the author is not a succint writer. The
most thought-provoking section of each chapter is the last section, Afterthought of the author.
I recommend this book as a resource, but recent PET Scan information would improve the relevance of this book Perhaps the author can add an addendum to each chapter or better yet, write a new version of this very valuable book.
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Excellent! ( science_reader )
Dr. Panksepp has provided a solid foundation for further investigation into the biological bases of emotions and affect. The claims and speculations [reported in the book] were developed from the results of many studies as well as from hypotheses not yet tested. Further research will likely confirm many of Panksepp's claims, but will surely disconfirm others.At least one of the previous reviewers stated that the book is "annoying, speculative, and even erroneous." Of course it is! How else does science progress? If we did not speculate, make errors, or go against earlier suggestions, no discoveries could be made. My suggestion to ths reviewer is to read the entire book. As with any literary work, reading only the first several chapters prevents the reader from realizing the main point of the book.
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