Demythologizing the emotions: adaptation, cognition, and visceral representations of emotion in the nervous system

This article highlights four issues about the neurobiology of emotions: adaptation vs. dysfunction, peripheral and central representations of emotion, the regulation of the internal milieu, and whether emotions are cognitive. It is argued that the emotions evolved to play diverse adaptive roles and are biologically vital sources of information processing. They were not designed as pieces of pathology, though they certainly can underlie some psychophathologies. Emotions are, in part, appraisal systems that are operative at numerous level of the nervous system from the brainstem to the cortex. Like other information processing systems they are not perfect cognitive systems. Emotional systems often utilize somatic and visceral information for appraisals of events to facilitate decisions of whether to approach or avoid objects. The neural systems of emotions traverse the entire neural axis and are linked to the regulation of the internal milieu. Thus, in addition to the experiential aspects of emotions, emotions embody appraisal systems that are pervasive to all levels of the brain to facilitate function, adaptation, and survival.