Chapter 9: Emotion and Affective Neuroscience
By Eddie Harmon-Jones and Cindy Harmon-Jones
This chapter was adapted from:
Harmon-Jones, E. & Harmon-Jones, C. (2023). Affective neuroscience. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/qnv3erb9 License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED
This chapter provides a brief overview of the neuroscience of emotion. It integrates findings from human and animal research and describes the brain networks and associated neurotransmitters involved in basic affective systems.
Learning Objectives
- Define affective neuroscience.
- Describe neuroscience techniques used to study emotions in humans and animals.
- Name five emotional systems and their associated neural structures and neurotransmitters.
- Give examples of exogenous chemicals (e.g., drugs) that influence affective systems and discuss their effects.
- Discuss multiple affective functions of the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens.
- Name several specific human emotions and discuss their relationship to the affective systems of nonhuman animals.
