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What makes humanity humane
1Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, Washington, DC 20057-1001, USA. pribramk@georgetown.edu
Distinguishing motivation and emotion is key. Motivation involves readiness via the striatum, while emotion involves arousal via the amygdala, both processed by basal ganglia.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Psychology
Background:
- Popular and scientific understanding links emotion to the limbic forebrain.
- Disagreement exists regarding limbic structures and the definition of emotion.
Purpose of the Study:
- To trace the historical basis of the emotion-limbic forebrain connection.
- To clarify confusion in brain systems and behaviors related to emotion and motivation.
Main Methods:
- Historical analysis of early studies.
- Review of subsequent experimental evidence.
- Conceptual distinction between motivation and emotion.
Main Results:
- Motivation and emotion are distinct processes.
- Motivation is processed by the striatum (basal ganglia), emotion by the amygdala (limbic basal ganglia).
- Striatum handles 'readiness activation' (what to do?), amygdala handles 'arousal' (response to novelty).
Conclusions:
- Motivation and emotion are proactive memory aspects: readiness activation and novelty processing, respectively.
- The hippocampal-cingulate circuit relates emotion and motivation via dispositions.
- The prefrontal cortex refines these processes during complex decision-making.
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