The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life

by Joseph E. LeDoux

Book Overview

What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684836599
• ISBN13: 9780684836591
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A very important book...

Ledoux reveals the basic functioning of the brain in this book. Based on his research and theories we may undertsand that: * Emotion is the trigger to action * The rational system follows the emotional system * Present actions are driven by past experiences * Present experiences dictate our emerging needs This theory is now called "emtional imprinting" and is being exploited by marketing and advertising companies to sell products. Our responses provide insight into how the brain stores information as well as makes decisions. The book is not only basic psychology but also a guide for understanding managining and even mergers and acquisitions. Highly recommended.

A few comments

Ledoux's book gives an excellent introduction to those powerful brain areas that underlie emotion and such things as aggression, fear, anger, and so on, especially the limbic system. This is the primitive area of the brain inherited from our evolutionary ancestors where emotions and violent behavior get controlled and mediated. Above it is the cerebral cortex, where more advanced thinking processes--language, memory, analytical thought, spatial reasoning, and so on--reside. The limbic system has powerful connections to the cortex, especially the frontal and pre-frontal cortex, where more complex aspects of personality have been found to reside, such as long-term motivation and achievement drives. But getting back to the limbic system, the amydala, for example, is intimately involved in aggression. It was found in one study that a large percentage of death row inmates had abnormal EEG's emanating from the amydalar area, and Ledoux discusses a number of other interesting studies related to this area. In another famous case, Charles Whitman climbed up a tower with a sniper rifle at the University of Texas and killed 16 people and wounded 30 before he was killed by the police in the mid-60's. An autopsy revealed that Whitman, who had been reported by fellow students to be a quiet, easy-going student and not especially aggressive, had an amygdalar tumor. Well, although the darkest and most violent influences of the limbic system such as in the above cases may not always be in evidence, it's malevolent power continues to affect much of our behavior in other ways. I think this has obvious application and implications to how human society and history has turned out, and I discuss that at the end of my review. I wanted to discuss one other study, which wasn't in the book. Another sobering result turned up by the emminent neuroanatomist, Orlando J. Andy, is that the limbic system is actually much larger both in absolute terms and also proportionally to the rest of our brain than in any other mammalian or primate species. In other words, although we did evolve the more advanced cerebral cortex, we didn't de-emphasize or shrink the more primitive and violent limbic system as a result; in fact, we expanded on it and grew an even bigger, more complex, and more powerful one. This was completely unexpected, from a comparative neuronatomy standpoint. This is not a good thing, because as Ledoux makes clear, although we think with our cerebral cortices, our behavior is mostly molded and controlled and motivated by the more primitive limbic system areas. This recent functional neurological finding shows why our history is the way it is. Although we can attain to more peaceable and advanced thought and culture sometimes, it's normally too difficult for us because the more primitive, more violent areas of the brain still control almost everything we do. Because of the malevolent influence of the limbic system, it's too often the case that humans would rather live

A long needed book

This book is a long-needed look at how those parts of the brain that mediate emotion, primarily the limbic system and the medial and lateral frontal cortex, affect our behavior, thinking, and our lives. This is a well-written and thoughful account for the intelligent layman about this important topic. There are excellent discussions of the different limbic system structures as well as the frontal lobes. The sections on the amygdala I thought were especially good, and the discussions of how the frontal lobes and the limbic areas interact in various and important ways is equally good.Unlike other important areas of science, there are few really accessible books on the brain for the non-specialist, but I've noticed the situation has improved significantly in the last 5 to 10 years. If you liked this book and want to round out your knowledge of the human brain, I can also recommend the following books, all of which are similarly well-regarded and well-written:1. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, by Antonio Damasio 2. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker3. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, by V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee4. Nature's Mind: The Biological Roots of Thinking, Emotions, Sexuality, Language, and Intelligence, by Michael Gazzaniga5. How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligences, Then & Now, by William H. CalvinThere are about a half dozen others that I could have added to this list, but I would read these first. In fact, I would start with Gazzaniga's book and then read the others, since his book is more of a general introduction, whereas the others deal more with certain special topics.If you read these books you'll be in pretty good shape in terms of having at least a basic understanding of current neuroscience. Anyway, good luck and happy reading.

Absolutely Superb

This is one of the best science popularizations I have ever read. Science writers frequently have trouble finding the right voice in addressing the general reader, but in this case I found the tone perfect: lucidly written, logical, cogently argued, complete, with good narrative flow; not patronizing, not trying to grab with cheap journalistic metaphores or other strained writing designed to win over the timid. Anyone who has ever wondered about emotions-- what they are, where they come from, why we have them, what their role is in "thought", will be well rewarded for reading this book. I also found it more up to date and more accessible than the other famous book on this subject, Descartes' Error.

Laypersons will like it; Psychologists will NEED it...

For the layperson, LeDoux's book is an excellent account of the scientific search for understanding what emotions are and what they do. Comparing it to the several trendy books about measuring emotional intelligence isn't quite fair--this is not a self-help book that stresses the importance of good social skills (which to me, seems what emotional quotient boils down to). Instead, this book nicely weaves the best of psychological, biological, and cutting-edge neuroscientific research to give the reader a good picture of what scientists currently know about emotions and how emotions are experienced in the body and the mind. But despite the comprehensive scientific explanations, the book is extremely readable and filled with real-world implications. For a professor of neural science, LeDoux writes creatively (love those subheadings!), and I think this book can do for the study of emotions what Carl Sagan's Cosmos did for astronomy. For psychologists, particularly psychotherapists, this book should be required reading. Despite dealing with people's emotions everyday, few therapists can give more than a basic explanation of what exactly an emotion is, and how it influences human functioning. This is partly because most textbook discussions of emotions are either too basic or too difficult, are just plain boring, or don't make the implications for therapists clear. LeDoux's book changes all that--I've reviewed several academic books, articles, and texts on understanding emotions, and kept coming back to this one. Do your graduate students (who may be groaning under the pressure of a dry neuroscience text!) a favor and make them all read The Emotional Brain--they'll be just as educated, and a lot more excited as well.