Neuropsychology Central

Belle · Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 1

I am writing a paper on whether the limbic system is solely responsible for human motivation and emotion. I have found so much information and do not know exactly what major theories are being held as accepted in this area. It is apparent that the limbic system theory has points that are reasonably accepted, but then there are other areas, which bring it to question (i.e. evolution of the neocortex in humans, etc). Therefore, I am trying to find some major theories on where human motivation and emotion stem from inside the human brain. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Very Happy

dmlevy · Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Posts: 7

I know this might be 2 years too late, but the amygdala is heavily implicated in any emotional response. The group I work with at UW really focuses on affective neuroscience, so you might want to look up publications by Paul Whalen, Richard Davidson, and other researchers at the University of Wisconsin. Hope this helps!

PS - I'm surprised by the lack of responses to posts on this site. Granted some questions are quite repetative, but I'd like to know (and I'm sure other people would too) the answers to some of the posts that haven't been replied to yet. Thanks.

-David

phil480 · Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 10

I dont' know what your paper criteria is exactly, but you may be interested in checking out some social psychological explantions for emotion. It appears emotive expression as well as the perception of emotively laden events is highly correlated with socio-cultural factors. From this one might conclude the the higher cortical regions of the brain which are concerned with the conscious evaluation of the external enviroment play a critical role in the expresion of emotion. This may further suggest the presence of some communicatio between the cortex and stuctures of the limbic system.

Edward · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Diemen

The Limbic System has a great deal to do with the first stages of perception in my opinion. You could look at it, as the system, that we human beings and most other mammals share. With that in mind, you could say, Well mammals have emotion and motivation, right? So the system should be enough to handle these processes for the human being as well. But I think we oversee the fact, that humans evolved further. We evolved a well organized Neocortex, with a large forebrain.

First stages of perception in my opinion, are the perceptions of movement and location. Every mammal shares these two perceptions. Only the human being questions, Why? You could see the Why component, evolved in the Neocortex and especially the Forebrain.

Why? Is a question sufficient to effect emotion and motivation. A lot of incidencents in human life could be questioned. But a human misinterpretates and even a slight interpretation causes emotion right? So a good thing to adress in your paper is to divide the causes of emotion and motivation. Than you'll see the Limbic System isn't solely the cause of these processes.

You have to excuse my English. I'm from the Netherlands. And open to discuss further about this topic, if you like.

Good luck with your work!!

webercl · Joined: 25 Mar 2005 Posts: 2 Location: Carolinas

This is an interesting topic on which many studies have been conducted. I would suggest looking into the work of Dr. Friedman at the University of Missouri-Columbia who's done alot of work on this.

Remember that aside from just looking at what area of the brain deals with emotion, you need to look at what cues activate emotion and how. Hemispheric activation can be shifted so a large factor of assessing motivation and emotion is to look at the approach and avoidance states.