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17. Neurology of Emotion - Update, 11 Septr 2021
17. Neurology of Emotion - Update, 11 Septr 2021
Emotions include anger, anxiety and fear, sex desire, sadness and joy.
Emotions influence behavior and may be a factor in diseases like heart attack, stroke, peptic ulcer, and thus may hinder healthy longevity.
It is of course good to control one's emotions since uncontrolled they often get us into trouble. Also, to learn how others might control one's own emotions to do things against one's interests, and to control the emotions of loved ones and associates to prevent harm.
Take fear? You all know its feeling. Each person has an almost unaware tone of fear, an underlying anxiety and each has a different level, which extends from the bland "What, me worry?" to the chronically anxious, paranoid person who finds fear around every corner.
Anger is close to fear. It is one's resistance to a source of fear. Some persons are always angry as though it is due to a hormone they have too much of. Take a case, the infamous unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, who in the 1980s and 90s killed more than 20 persons by secreting bombs on or near them and, as we learn now from his analysis, he was a person with free-flowing overwhelming, pathological anger (irrational because his response to it was out of reality, in a word psychotic although he himself was not psychotic) It is of interest that while a student at Harvard, Kaczynski participated in an experiment in which he was given LSD. Could this have lead the spark for his pathological anger?
We each have different emotional tones, different degrees of reacting to the same stimulus. One person is scared of little mice; another loves them as pets. Our main problem with emotion is when it becomes an irresistible urge and then some guy gets a gun or decides to mail a bomb.
Emotions influence behavior and may be a factor in diseases like heart attack, stroke, peptic ulcer, and thus may hinder healthy longevity.
It is of course good to control one's emotions since uncontrolled they often get us into trouble. Also, to learn how others might control one's own emotions to do things against one's interests, and to control the emotions of loved ones and associates to prevent harm.
Take fear? You all know its feeling. Each person has an almost unaware tone of fear, an underlying anxiety and each has a different level, which extends from the bland "What, me worry?" to the chronically anxious, paranoid person who finds fear around every corner.
Anger is close to fear. It is one's resistance to a source of fear. Some persons are always angry as though it is due to a hormone they have too much of. Take a case, the infamous unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, who in the 1980s and 90s killed more than 20 persons by secreting bombs on or near them and, as we learn now from his analysis, he was a person with free-flowing overwhelming, pathological anger (irrational because his response to it was out of reality, in a word psychotic although he himself was not psychotic) It is of interest that while a student at Harvard, Kaczynski participated in an experiment in which he was given LSD. Could this have lead the spark for his pathological anger?
We each have different emotional tones, different degrees of reacting to the same stimulus. One person is scared of little mice; another loves them as pets. Our main problem with emotion is when it becomes an irresistible urge and then some guy gets a gun or decides to mail a bomb.
Limbic System: The Location of Emotions 
A schematic of brain from its left side lengthwise from front (your left) to rear brain emphasizing the inner mid-line structure lavender color Limbic System. These structures are actually on the inside of the large front-to-back fissure that separates the left from right hemispheres. The limbic system consists of the cingulum (or cingulate lobe), which is the front to back curved lavender. At the tail end of the curve is the hippocampus and the hypothalamus (not shown here but visualize it under the front-lower nuclei that look like tentacles). The hypothalamus is the master controller of the body glands. The right and left thalami (sing.: thalamus) is inside the curve of the limbic system structures and important in integrating emotions and stimuli. To this, many would add the left and right amygdala which are subcortical structures inside the inner temporal lobes that control anger and placidity.
The limbic system is a transmission center between the cerebral cortex and the reflex responses of the lower nervous system, and when disturbed due to trauma, infection, drug effect, tumor or stroke, it may cause our emotions to get badly out of control thus explaining some cases of overwhelming anger, hypersexuality and mania.
Emotions are part of consciousness. What it is to be angry, happy, sexually aroused are feeling states we have as instant recall. We all know these states by our consciousness of the feelings that come from the brain's integration of all the sensations and chemical effects acting through the limbic system to give feelings to the emotions. We have hints that suggest chemical effects, for example, in orgasm's pleasure being increased by taking anti depression pills like Tofranil (imipramine) and by opioids.
A question that is still being argued by psychologists and philosophers is: Do we feel afraid of a danger that we must run away from or do we feel afraid because we are reflexively (Unthinkingly as we would leap out of the way of the moving car before we even think of its danger) running away from the danger? In other words is the source of emotion the actual physical reaction - rapid beating heart, sweating feeling - or is it coming from the conscious knowledge of the danger we face?
Also keep in mind the socio-legal and moral-ethical aspect of the brain's mediation of emotion and the control of the behavior that goes with it. If you cheat or fool a person and he shoots to kill you, he has clearly committed a crime and should be arrested, tried and punished. But if a person who never met you suddenly shoots you in the street in a fit of anger because you looked at him the wrong way, and if that person is found to harbor a brain tumor in the limbic system, he should not be convicted of a crime but rather should be removed from daily life, diagnosed and treated. In contrast to the usual psychiatric legal defenses, those illnesses that result from limbic system diseases show the local lesions and often may be diagnosed by MRI, PET or SPECT scan.
An anatomic cause of emotional illness should be considered if the excess or lack of emotion is new in a person who has had a normal pattern of behavior. Everyone has overwhelming emotions at times based on events in each one's life and we consider him responsible morally for his actions in those cases. But the symptoms of brain diseases causing extreme emotion will be new and sometimes sudden and explosive.
The following new behaviors should suggest brain-change causes of emotional disease and should have neuroimaging scans of Brain, EEG and other neurological workup and blood hormone and neurotransmitter tests: a change to hyper-sexuality or, oppositely, to sexual apathy that cannot be explained by aging or drugs or an action that is not part of normal personality. Also unprovoked anger that is unusual for a person - sudden explosive acts or very irrational anger responses. Apathy unexplained and coming on in a normal personality is another red flasher for limbic brain disease. Excess laughing or crying not fitting the situation is another sign.
Many diseases operating on the limbic system cause abnormal emotion and it is at their onset the sudden behavior will be noted - encephalitis, vascular stroke, tumor growth, degenerative disease like Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington Disease and Alzheimer's, and the changes of aging.
A part of psychoanalysis should be neuroimaging of brain, EEG and complete blood test screen including hormones, vitamins and neurotransmitters and other tests suggested by medical and social history to determine physical causes of personality type.
End Note: The effects of medication or recreational drugs should also not be ignored as cause of sudden emotional change. For example, the hypersexuality of patients being treated with L-DOPA for Parkinson disease and also for persons taking sex steroids for muscle building, sports and menopause. And the sexual apathy caused by hypertension drugs like reserpine. In the same vein, good tranquilizers or well used opioids may prevent serious heinous acts by limbic diseased persons.
Finally, always try to keep in mind that your strong feelings are essentially chemical, based on an excess of one or another neurotransmitter or psychoactive drug. The problem is when one acts out the chemical feeling - like jumping off a high roof or in front of a train. A stopper-thought always ought to be: It’s only chemical; I don’t need to act out! Keep it in mind next time you want to go gaga.
End of Chapter. To read next click 9.18a Gait, Especially in Old Age
A schematic of brain from its left side lengthwise from front (your left) to rear brain emphasizing the inner mid-line structure lavender color Limbic System. These structures are actually on the inside of the large front-to-back fissure that separates the left from right hemispheres. The limbic system consists of the cingulum (or cingulate lobe), which is the front to back curved lavender. At the tail end of the curve is the hippocampus and the hypothalamus (not shown here but visualize it under the front-lower nuclei that look like tentacles). The hypothalamus is the master controller of the body glands. The right and left thalami (sing.: thalamus) is inside the curve of the limbic system structures and important in integrating emotions and stimuli. To this, many would add the left and right amygdala which are subcortical structures inside the inner temporal lobes that control anger and placidity.
The limbic system is a transmission center between the cerebral cortex and the reflex responses of the lower nervous system, and when disturbed due to trauma, infection, drug effect, tumor or stroke, it may cause our emotions to get badly out of control thus explaining some cases of overwhelming anger, hypersexuality and mania.
Emotions are part of consciousness. What it is to be angry, happy, sexually aroused are feeling states we have as instant recall. We all know these states by our consciousness of the feelings that come from the brain's integration of all the sensations and chemical effects acting through the limbic system to give feelings to the emotions. We have hints that suggest chemical effects, for example, in orgasm's pleasure being increased by taking anti depression pills like Tofranil (imipramine) and by opioids.
A question that is still being argued by psychologists and philosophers is: Do we feel afraid of a danger that we must run away from or do we feel afraid because we are reflexively (Unthinkingly as we would leap out of the way of the moving car before we even think of its danger) running away from the danger? In other words is the source of emotion the actual physical reaction - rapid beating heart, sweating feeling - or is it coming from the conscious knowledge of the danger we face?
Also keep in mind the socio-legal and moral-ethical aspect of the brain's mediation of emotion and the control of the behavior that goes with it. If you cheat or fool a person and he shoots to kill you, he has clearly committed a crime and should be arrested, tried and punished. But if a person who never met you suddenly shoots you in the street in a fit of anger because you looked at him the wrong way, and if that person is found to harbor a brain tumor in the limbic system, he should not be convicted of a crime but rather should be removed from daily life, diagnosed and treated. In contrast to the usual psychiatric legal defenses, those illnesses that result from limbic system diseases show the local lesions and often may be diagnosed by MRI, PET or SPECT scan.
An anatomic cause of emotional illness should be considered if the excess or lack of emotion is new in a person who has had a normal pattern of behavior. Everyone has overwhelming emotions at times based on events in each one's life and we consider him responsible morally for his actions in those cases. But the symptoms of brain diseases causing extreme emotion will be new and sometimes sudden and explosive.
The following new behaviors should suggest brain-change causes of emotional disease and should have neuroimaging scans of Brain, EEG and other neurological workup and blood hormone and neurotransmitter tests: a change to hyper-sexuality or, oppositely, to sexual apathy that cannot be explained by aging or drugs or an action that is not part of normal personality. Also unprovoked anger that is unusual for a person - sudden explosive acts or very irrational anger responses. Apathy unexplained and coming on in a normal personality is another red flasher for limbic brain disease. Excess laughing or crying not fitting the situation is another sign.
Many diseases operating on the limbic system cause abnormal emotion and it is at their onset the sudden behavior will be noted - encephalitis, vascular stroke, tumor growth, degenerative disease like Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington Disease and Alzheimer's, and the changes of aging.
A part of psychoanalysis should be neuroimaging of brain, EEG and complete blood test screen including hormones, vitamins and neurotransmitters and other tests suggested by medical and social history to determine physical causes of personality type.
End Note: The effects of medication or recreational drugs should also not be ignored as cause of sudden emotional change. For example, the hypersexuality of patients being treated with L-DOPA for Parkinson disease and also for persons taking sex steroids for muscle building, sports and menopause. And the sexual apathy caused by hypertension drugs like reserpine. In the same vein, good tranquilizers or well used opioids may prevent serious heinous acts by limbic diseased persons.
Finally, always try to keep in mind that your strong feelings are essentially chemical, based on an excess of one or another neurotransmitter or psychoactive drug. The problem is when one acts out the chemical feeling - like jumping off a high roof or in front of a train. A stopper-thought always ought to be: It’s only chemical; I don’t need to act out! Keep it in mind next time you want to go gaga.
End of Chapter. To read next click 9.18a Gait, Especially in Old Age
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