Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Emotion is central to human life and intimately connected with consciousness (Kringelbach and Phillips 2014). Investigating the underlying brain mechanisms can help us understand and potentially treat the serious problems of affective disorders, such as unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, chronic pain, and the worldwide epidemic of obesity. Historically, the link with consciousness has led to a relative neglect of emotion as a subject of systematic scientific inquiry in comparison with other fields, such as cognition. However, the last few decades have seen a significant increase in research on emotion, leading to important new discoveries of the brain mechanisms involved. Importantly, it has become clear that a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of emotion relies on investigating reward and hedonic processing which is the main focus of this chapter.

Original publication

DOI

10.1007/978-3-030-88832-9_46

Type

Chapter

Book title

Neuroscience in the 21st Century: From Basic to Clinical: Third Edition

Publication Date

01/01/2022

Pages

1779 - 1811