Biology Of Emotions |

Knowing about your brain can help you appreciate all it does for you. SONI VERMA, professor of psychology at Sierra College, Sacramento, California, does a brainscan Why do we call certain emotions bad? What we experience are different combinations of the six basic emotions: happiness, anger, fear, surprise, sadness and disgust. We call some positive and some negative but they are all there for a reason. They help us cope with everyday life, allowing us to communicate what we feel toward certain situations, people and things. But, emotions such as shame, pride, jealously and guilt are not considered part of the basic emotions set. There is no scientific evidence showing that there is a universal expression of shame that is recognised the world over as shame. Does meditation change the brain pattern? Brain waves do change during meditation. When you meditate, the balance of brain wave activity in your brain shifts there is less Beta, the thinking and stress-related brain wave, and more Alpha, Theta and Gamma the relaxation and meditation brain waves. Through meditation and altering your brain wave balance, you create more happiness. This feeling spills over into our daily activities. People who meditate daily have greater control over their negative emotions. Can fear be a positive emotion? Fear can be both positive and negative. A phobia or a debilitating fear that prevents you from doing everyday jobs is negative. Being afraid helps you protect yourself. Anger intensifies our defensive behaviour. Fear accelerates flight. From fear, you learn not to do things that can be harmful for you. And thats a positive thing for your survival. Disgust tells you to avoid things that can cause illness. Happiness encourages behaviour that produces positive emotions. Why is it important to control our emotions and not overreact? Emotions involve the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity. ANS has two parts: the sympathetic and para-sympathetic system. The sympathetic nervous system arousal is associated with strong emotions like fear, happiness and anger. It is responsible for the fight-or-flight response. When these nerves get active, heartbeat increases, BP goes up, pupils dilate, you start sweating, energy gets diverted to your muscles (so that you can run) and digestion becomes a low priority for your body. When people are exposed to long-term stress when there is frequent arousal of the sympathetic nervous system there can be serious consequences that impact your health. In order for the body to remain relaxed, we have the para-sympathetic nervous system that deals with the restand-digest system. This helps us calm down. The brain plays a role in these different emotions. Is there a happiness centre or a fear centre in the brain?

There is no specific part of the brain that is responsible for any one given emotion. The limbic system is responsible for the different emotions we experience. Also called the primitive brain, it is common to humans and animals. But what separates humans and animals is the cerebral cortex, which empowers humans with cognitive skills that make us reason things out logically. The limbic system and the cerebral cortex complement each other. While the former evokes emotions like fear and anger, the latter helps us reason things out. The limbic system is a complex set of structures that lies on both sides of the thalamus, just under the cerebrum. It includes the hypothalamus, the hippocampus and the amygdala. Crying and laughing activate the amygdala. Injury to these parts of the brain can affect emotions. For example, a person with a damaged amygdala cannot experience fear. A tumour in the hypothalamus can trigger excessive aggression. Can our behaviour change brain structure? Our brain is responsible for our behaviour and our behaviour has the capacity to change our brain. So what you do, how you live your life, whether you meditate or lead a stressful life can change your brain. Too much stress can shrink your hippocampus (that is why when you are stressed, you become forgetful). Our environment and experience determine our level of aggression. We often attribute a persons behaviour to society and culture, but it can be biological also. We often ignore biology genes, brain activity or structure. What about spiritual experience? Spiritual experience happens in the brain. Neuroscience now understands a great deal about how the brain works during a variety of spiritual experiences, ranging from neardeath to mystical oneness. Many of our spiritual moments are linked to fight-or-flight survival responses. The brain structures underlying our survival impulses evolved long before other structures made the human brain capable of language and reasoning. How does the brain deal with moral issues? Most of us think that morality comes only from culture, society and religion. But damage to a particular structure in the brain can alter decision making. There is a specific brain abnormality associated with criminal psychopathy. Psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. A tumour in the pre-frontal cortex leads to poor-decision making. Severe damage to brain parts cannot be corrected, but increasing the activity of those parts of the brain that help in de-stressing and relaxing or that which stimulate the para-sympathetic nervous system is good for people with brain damage. Neuroplasticity helps in a limited way. Does our mind tend to choose emotion over logic? Though our mind does use the logical option, the first thought that comes is the emotional option. From the evolutionary standpoint, emotions are basic to animals, while logic is unique to humans. Emotion is more rooted in our minds than logic is

because our species has been acquiring logic over time, according to the evolutionary clock. This concept is physically visible too; brain tissue related to emotion is closer to the centre of the brain while logic-pertaining tissue is generally in the outer layers, specifically in the caudal area.