Tran's review
The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life
by Joseph LeDoux
Tran's review
The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life by Joseph LeDoux
Tran's review
rating:
bookshelves:
math-science
"You're reading that for *fun*?" "Yup."
Okay so it wasn't really "fun", reading this book, and god knows it took me nearly the entire summer to finish it, but here are some crazy tidbits about our emotional brain:
You know how sometimes you wished you could will yourself to feel a certain way about a certain situation/person/thing? Ya know, adopt an emotionally "mature" perspective on it? But instead you feel kinda angry/bitter/jealous/scared/sad/etc. about the whole fucking thing? Well here's why (in a grossly reductive, I'm-too-lazy-to-write-a-10-page-essay-about-this-shit-kinda-way): the amygdala. You see, that part of the brain mediates emotional arousal, and its pathways to (and subsequent influence on) the cortex (where higher cognitive functions -- e.g. thinking -- occur) are far stronger than the other way around. That explains why it's much easier for emotions to grip your conscious thoughts & behavior than vice versa. ...more
Okay so it wasn't really "fun", reading this book, and god knows it took me nearly the entire summer to finish it, but here are some crazy tidbits about our emotional brain:
You know how sometimes you wished you could will yourself to feel a certain way about a certain situation/person/thing? Ya know, adopt an emotionally "mature" perspective on it? But instead you feel kinda angry/bitter/jealous/scared/sad/etc. about the whole fucking thing? Well here's why (in a grossly reductive, I'm-too-lazy-to-write-a-10-page-essay-about-this-shit-kinda-way): the amygdala. You see, that part of the brain mediates emotional arousal, and its pathways to (and subsequent influence on) the cortex (where higher cognitive functions -- e.g. thinking -- occur) are far stronger than the other way around. That explains why it's much easier for emotions to grip your conscious thoughts & behavior than vice versa. ...more
