The Archaeology of Mind Quotes

“When scientific conversations cease, then dogma rather than knowledge begins to rule the day.”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

“We now know that the placebo effect is real medicine that operates mainly through the activation of brain opioid systems.”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

“In the past, when an apparently healthy patient appeared emotionally agitated and complained of physical symptoms, doctors tended to believe that the symptoms were psychosomatic, “all in the mind,” and therefore not physical or “real.” This is no longer an accepted view of psychosomatic illness. As soon as we recognize that affects emerge from emotional systems that are fueled by brain chemicals that can also exert an eventual effect on the functioning of the brain and the body, then the division between emotional and physical disorders narrows to the point of extinction.”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

“When a child is born with the body of one sex and the brain of another, social pressures will only make matters worse, because the child’s innate gender identity cannot be altered by persuasion. (...)
These neurobiological facts are concordant with social practices that many American Indian tribes traditionally followed: At times, nature ordains that a female sexual identity should flower within the brain of a biological male, and a masculine temperament should flourish within a biological female.
The wisdom of some of our ancestors readily accepted the psychosexual variety that Nature bestowed on vertebrates—a continuum of maleness and femaleness—that many in our culture have learned to scorn.”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

“Read-out theories imply that affects can only occur either in animals that are intelligent enough to interpret emotional physiology or in animals that have language. This would mean that only human beings and perhaps some other primates are affective creatures. Presumably less intelligent mammals copulate without lust, attack without rage, cower without fear, and nurture without affection. They cannot feel the sting—the psychic pain—of social loss. This may be an extreme depiction of the prevailing view, but it is not far off the mark among those who are actually doing animal brain research”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

“We already have medications such as Substance P receptor antagonists, and the drug aprepitant (a medication currently used to treat nausea), which should, if one can generalize from the animal data, reduce angry irritability (see Chapter 4”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

“For quite a while, the development of psychiatric medicine has been stifled by man-made concepts, gleaned from complex symptomatology rather than from brain research.”
― Jaak Panksepp, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions