The nature of feelings: evolutionary and neurobiological origins

@article{Damasio2013TheNO,
  title={The nature of feelings: evolutionary and neurobiological origins},
  author={Antonio R. Damasio and Gil B. Carvalho},
  journal={Nature Reviews Neuroscience},
  year={2013},
  volume={14},
  pages={143-152}
}
Feelings are mental experiences of body states. They signify physiological need (for example, hunger), tissue injury (for example, pain), optimal function (for example, well-being), threats to the organism (for example, fear or anger) or specific social interactions (for example, compassion, gratitude or love). Feelings constitute a crucial component of the mechanisms of life regulation, from simple to complex. Their neural substrates can be found at all levels of the nervous system, from… 
View on Nature
is.muni.cz
776 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
33
Background Citations
310
Methods Citations
10
Results Citations
7

776 Citations

Neurobiology of emotions: an update
TLDR
An updated discussion about the neurobiology of processes relating to emotions is presented, focusing on the main neural structures that relate to emotions, the paths and circuits of greater relevance, and the implicated neurotransmitters and connections that possess neurovegetative control.
Interoception and the origin of feelings: A new synthesis
  • Gil B. Carvalho, A. Damasio
  • Psychology, Biology
    BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
  • 2021
TLDR
The atypical traits of the INS and the direct interactions between neural and non‐neural physiological compartments of the organism, neither of which is present in exteroceptive systems, plausibly explain the qualitative and subjective aspects of feelings, thus accounting for their conscious nature.
The Brain Stress Systems II: The Mind Level of Brain Operations
TLDR
These mind-level operations affect all of those other processes in a top-down manner and can alter feelings of body state in powerful ways that incline the child either toward health and well-being or toward ill health and dis-ease.
Neural correlates of fear: insights from neuroimaging
TLDR
The stereotyped expression of fear can thus be viewed as a special construc- tion from combinations of these processes, and an important motivator for understanding neural fear mechanisms is the debilitating clinical expression of anxiety.
Physiological feelings
The conceptualization of emotions across cultures: a model based on interoceptive neuroscience
Psychological Conflict and Physical Illness: A New Mind–Body Model
As organisms, human beings are integrations of matter, energy, and information. The present article offers a new vision regarding the nature of emotions and their influence on the physical body.…
The subjective experience of emotion: a fearful view
The Neuropsychology of Emotion and Emotion Regulation: The Role of Laterality and Hierarchy
TLDR
It is proposed that, because emotion-regulation strategies are complex higher-order cognitive processes, the question appears to be not the lateralization of the entire emotional process, but the lateralized of the specific cognitive tools the authors use to manage their feelings, in a range of different ways.
Expressions of emotions across species
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 195 REFERENCES
The Embodiment of Emotional Feelings in the Brain
TLDR
It is shown that experience of core and body–boundary–violation disgust are dissociable in both peripheral autonomic and central neural responses and also that emotional experience specific to anterior insular activity encodes these different underlying patterns of peripheral physiological responses.
Neural basis of emotions
In modern neurobiological terms, emotions are complex programs of actions triggered by the presence of certain stimuli, external to the body or from within the body, when such stimuli activate…
Subcortical and cortical brain activity during the feeling of self-generated emotions
TLDR
The hypothesis that the process of feeling emotions requires the participation of brain regions that are involved in the mapping and/or regulation of internal organism states is tested, indicating the close relationship between emotion and homeostasis.
A new view of pain as a homeostatic emotion
  • A. Craig
  • Psychology, Biology
    Trends in Neurosciences
  • 2003
How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body
  • A. Craig
  • Psychology
    Nature Reviews Neuroscience
  • 2002
TLDR
Functional anatomical work has detailed an afferent neural system in primates and in humans that represents all aspects of the physiological condition of the physical body that might provide a foundation for subjective feelings, emotion and self-awareness.
Neural correlates of admiration and compassion
TLDR
The study revealed a previously undescribed pattern within the posteromedial cortices (the ensemble of precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and retrosplenial region), an intriguing territory currently known for its involvement in the default mode of brain operation and in self-related/consciousness processes.
Persistence of feelings and sentience after bilateral damage of the insula.
TLDR
This study investigates the proposal that the neural substrate of feeling states is to be found first subcortically and then secondarily repeated at cortical level in a patient whose insular cortices were destroyed bilaterally as a result of Herpes simplex encephalitis.
Emotion, motivation, and the brain: reflex foundations in animal and human research.
The basic emotional circuits of mammalian brains: Do animals have affective lives?
  • J. Panksepp
  • Psychology, Biology
    Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
  • 2011
Interoception: The Inside Story—A Model for Psychosomatic Processes
  • O. Cameron
  • Psychology, Medicine
    Psychosomatic medicine
  • 2001
TLDR
Understanding the physical basis of psychosomatic processes, including the so-called mind-body problem, will require a detailed understanding the psychobiology of interoception.
...
...