Behavior Regulation Systems in the Brain


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Unless you accept a soul-like explanation of behavior, you must accept the view that behavior originates in the brain. An introduction to the brain systems that regulate behavior.

Title Memo

This will bear against religious and folk views of human nature.

The definitions that Panksepp proffers for "basic emotional systems," a tally of those that seemed to be well-testified. The existence of "homeostatic" control systems, their commonalities and differences from the "basic emotional systems." The behavioral regulatory systems are the result of evolution, i.e., they force certain values on the organism that have been found biologically expedient over evolutionary time.

Note Text: 1854 Basic emotions an affective infrastructure

...the murky outlines of those genetically ingrained emotional circuits that provide an affective infrastructure to the animal and human mind.

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 13

Note Text: 1857 Emotions coordinate biological processes

a series of basic emotional processes arises from distinct neurobiological systems and that everyday emotional concepts such as anger, fear, joy, and loneliness are not merely the arbitrary taxonomic inventions of noncritical thinkers. These brain systems appear to have several common characteristics. As discussed fully....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 15

Note Text: 1879 Brain stimulation and locus of emotion

It is now well established that one can reliably evoke several distinct emotional patterns in all mammals during electrical stimulation of homologous subcortical regions. Typically, animals either like or dislike the stimulation, as can be inferred from such behavioral criteria as conditioned approach and avoidance. If....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 26

Note Text: 2013 CCK brain system

There are others [neuropeptide systems], such as CCK, which operate prominently in both cortical and subcortical neuronal areas. This peptide, widely considered to be a satiety transmitter in the body, is now receiving considerable attention as a potential mediator of panic attacks...

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 112

Note Text: 2011 CRF brain system

CRF neurons are concentrated in two nuclei, the paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei, which project to the anterior pituitary to control ACh release from anterior pituitary cells. CRF axons emerge from these cells, as well as from many others scattered in the anterior hypothalamus/bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, a....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 112

Note Text: 1998 Cholinergic brain systems overview

[Cholinergic (ACh) systems] have the ability to control much of the brain’s activity and appear to be executive systems for broad psychobehavioral functions such as waking and attention. There are six major cholinergic cell groups, designated Ch-1 to Ch-6, with many other more sparsely localized cells through many other....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 108

Note Text: 1999 Cholinergic function in brain and soma

Still, most investigators agree that the neuropsychological constructs that best subsume cholinergic functions are attention or arousal. Further, it is aIso a system that facilitates action tendencies. When placed in specific subareas of the brain, ACh (or longer-acting cholinergic drugs, such as carbachol, which simula....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 108

Note Text: 1967 Connections of basal ganglia

This massive flow of cortical information into the “reptilian brain” is repeatedly recirculated back to the cortex through the thalamus. The overall functions of the basal ganglia are under the control of one major “power switch”—ascending brain dopamine. which arises from cell groups in the ventromedial part of the mid....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 76

Note Text: 2048 Dopamine related to SEEKING, not consumption

[Dopamine release is concurrent with seeking, not with consummation.]

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 155

Note Text: 2004 Effects of catecholamine stimulation levels

with excessive DA activity, animals begin to exhibit repetitive behavior patterns known as stereotypies; with low NE activity, they tend to perseverate on a task despite changes in stimulus contingencies (presumably because of attentional deficits). Without adequate cortical NE, organisms are also prone to act impulsive....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 110

Note Text: 2069 Brain opioids necessary for consummatory pleasure

The evidence for brain opioid participation in the elaboration of consummatory pleasure is quite compelling. Animals that are given nonnutritive sweet solutions such as saccharin initially consume a great amount but gradually diminish their intake if they also do not have access to nutritive food. This suggests that the....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 184

Note Text: 1882 Emotional command centers

our scientific work is greatly simplified by the fact that there are "command processes” at the core of each emotional operating system, as indicated by the ability of localized brain stimulation to activate coherent emotional behavior patterns. We can turn on rage, fear, separation distress, and generalized seeking pat....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 27

Note Text: 1887 Emotional processing is unconscious

Most of emotional processing, as of every other psychobehavioral process, is done at an unconscious level.

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 28

Note Text: 1995 Epinephrine in the brain

epinephrine is a comparatively minor transmitter in the brain, although it is secreted abundantly in the periphery by the adrenal medulla, serving as a major stress hormone that recruits metabolic resources from liver glycogen stores. In the brain it seems to have a similar effect—dramatically increasing intracellular e....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 104

Note Text: 1875 Function of affect

The function of subjectively experienced feeling states may be to sustain ongoing behavior patterns and fo augment simple and effective learning strategies.

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 24

Note Text: 1883 Hierarchical emotion systems

Each emotional system is hierarchically arranged throughout much of the brain, interacting with more evolved cognitive structures in the higher reaches, and specific physiological and motor outputs at lower levels.

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 27

Note Text: 1850 Inference of inner causes of behavior

It is finally possible to credibly infer the natural order of the “inner causes” of behavior, including the emotional processes that activate many of the coherent nsychobehavioral tendencies animals and humans ex- hibit spontaneously without much prior learning. These natural brain processes help create the deeply felt....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 11

Note Text: 2066 Pleasure motivates behavioral choices

Pleasure is nature’s way of providing a simple general-purpose coding device for discriminating the relevance of both external objects and internal states, thereby providing a powerful intrinsic motivational mechanism for guiding behavioral choices.

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 182

Note Text: 2065 Pleasure, pain code ability to correct imbalance

It has been experimentally affirmed that pleasant and unpleasant feelings provoked by external stimuli arise from their ability to predict the alleviation of bodily imbalances. Stimuli that promote a return to homeostasis are routinely experienced as pleasurable, while those that would impair homeostasis are unpleasant....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 182

Note Text: 2005 Roles of NE and ACh

NE dampens the background “noise” or cortical neural activity irrelevant to a given task. This makes the influence of specific incoming signals more prominent in the cortex—namely, the ratio of the signal to background noise is increased. On the other hand, ACh actually appears to be a gatekeeper for incoming sensory si....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 111

Note Text: 1994 Ubiquitous influences of brain neurotransmitters

It is not uncommon for a single neurochemical system, or a single psychoactive drug, to have effects on nearly every behavior that is measured. For instance, the list of behavioral functions that brain serotonin does not modify is very short, containing no items, whereas the list of functions serotonin does affect inclu....

Panksepp, Jaak, "Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions", Oxford University Press, 1998, 103

End of included memoes/notes



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Brain Systems that Set Tone (This page is incomplete.)

Brain Systems that Promote Goals (This page is incomplete.)

The Brain's Side Doors (This page is incomplete.)

Brain Function and Evolution (This page is incomplete.)

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Motive, Behavior, and Learning (This page is incomplete.)