Affective Neuroscience with Jaak Panksepp (BSP 65)

Episode 65 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Jaak Panksepp, PhD, author of Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions.   Dr. Panksepp has done pioneering work on the neural origins of emotions.   In this interview, we discuss how his work challenges some of the common assumptions about emotions and some of the important implications of his discoveries.  New listeners may want to go back and listen to Episode 11 for an introduction to the neuroscience of emotion.

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• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

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• Buy Transcript for $1.

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

Listen in your Favorite Audio app: Audible, Amazon music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and many more.

References:

• Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions, by Jaak Panksepp.

• "How to Undress the Affective Mind: An Interview with Jaak Panksepp," S. Gallagher, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 15, Number 2, 2008 , pp. 89-119(31).

• "Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans,"J Panksepp,  Consciousness and Cognition 14 (2005)30-80. Elsevier. (available on-line via ScienceDirect.com)

• Visit Dr. Panksepp's faculty page for more references.

Scientists Mentioned in this Episode:

• John Bowlby: studied the effects of maternal deprivation, helped develop attachment theory.

• John Cacioppo: developed the concept of social neuroscience.

• Antonio Damasio: neurologist and author of several books including The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.

• Walter Hess: work in the 1930's showed that stimulation of the cat hypothalamus led to anger. He shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949.

• Tom Insel: Director of the National Institutes for Mental Health (NIMH).

• William James: early pioneer of scientific psychology. The James-Lange Theory of emotion is an outdated theory that emotion result from the brain's interpretation of signals coming from the body.

• Eric Kandel: won the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his work with memory in the Aplysia.

• Brian Knutson: former student of Panksepp.

• Joseph LeDoux: well-known for his work with fear and memory.

• Endel Tulving: memory researcher at the University of Toronto.

• For all the scientists mentioned see the episode transcript.

Send feedback to brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com.

"On Being Certain": Interview with Robert Burton, MD (BSP 43)

BSP 43 is an interview with Robert A Burton, MD, author of On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not. This is a follow up to BSP 42.

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

• Buy mp3 for $1.

• Buy Transcript for $1.

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

Other scientists/writers mentioned in this episode:

• Benjamin Libet: important experiments showing that unconscious signals precede our awareness of deciding to act.

• Timothy Wilson: Strangers to Ourselves.

• John Searle, philosopher: Mind: A Brief Introduction.

• David Bohm, physicist:Thought as a System.

Other terms mentioned in the interview:

• Cotard's Syndrome: when the patient believes they do not exist or that they are dead

• Cognitive dissonance: a mismatch between what one believes and what the evidence supports

Previous Episodes of the Brain Science Podcast:

• Episode 42: Part 1 of our discussion of On Being Certain.

• Episode 13: Unconscious Decisions-featuring Blink, by Malcom Gladwel.l

• Episode 15: Interview with Read Montague about unconscious decisions.

Donations and Subscriptions are appreciated

Send email feedback to Ginger Campbell, MD at brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com

Review: "On Being Certain" (BSP 42)

Episode 42 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton, MD.  This Part 1 of a two-part discussion of the unconscious origins of what Dr. Burton calls "the feeling of knowing."  In Episode 43 I will interview Dr. Burton. Today's episode provides an overview of Dr. Burton's key ideas.

In past episodes I have discussed the role of unconscious decision-making.  On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not ,by Robert Burton, MD, takes this topic to a new level.  First, Dr. Burton discusses the evidence that the "feeling of knowing" arises from parts of our brain that we can neither access or control.  Then he discusses the implications of this finding, including the fact that it challenges long-held assumptions about the possibility of purely rational thought.

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

• Buy mp3 for $1.

• Buy Transcript for $1.

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

References and Links:

• On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton, MD.

• Robert Burton's website.

• Neisser, U., and Harsh, N. "Phantom Flashbulbs: False Recollections of Hearing the News about Challenger,"  in Affect and Accuracy in Recall: Studies of "Flashbulb" Memories, Winograd, E., and Neisser, U., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

• The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, by Daniel L. Schacter.

• The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, by Antonio Damasio.

• Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

Other scientists mentioned in this episode:

• Leon Festinger-proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance in 1957.

• Joseph Ledoux-research with rats and the role of the amygdala in the fear response.

• Michael Merzenich-showed how the auditory cortex in young rats is affected by experience.

Donations and Subscriptions are appreciated

Send email feedback to Ginger Campbell, MD at brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com

Review of "Gut Feelings" (BSP 19)

Show Notes forBrain Science Podcast #19: Gut Feelings

This episode is a discussion of Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious (2007), by Gerd Gigerenzer.

Dr. Gigerenzer argues that unconscious decision-making or intuition is actually based on the use of heuristics(rules of thumb) that can be explored, and even brought into awareness.  In this episode, I discuss his basic arguments with an emphasis on the differences between intuitive reasoning and formal logic.  Then we explore some examples including the application of these ideas to more controversial areas like morality and social instincts.

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

• Buy mp3 for $1.

• Buy Transcript for $1.

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

Listen in your Favorite Audio app: Audible, Amazon music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and many more.

References

• Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious (2007), by Gerd Gigerenzer.

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), by Malcolm Gladwell.

• See also Brain Science Podcast #13: Unconscious Decision Making.

Links of Interest:

• Gerd Gigerenzer: Wikipedia.

• Gerd Gigerenzer:  Home page at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

• Jonathan Haidt:  Social psychologist mentioned  in this episode.

Brain Science Podcast's First Six Months (BSP 14)

Although the first full episode of the Brain Science Podcast appeared on December 15, 2006, I went live with an introductory podcast around December 1, 2006.  (I have deleted episode 0 from the feed).  At any rate, I decided it was time to look back over the first six months and reflect on some of the topics we have covered.

This is one of the shorter episodes, but I hope it will bring some of the key ideas back to mind (and encourage new listeners to go back and get the older episodes).  It will also give you a glimpse of what we will be discussing in the next few months.

As always, I welcome comments and suggestions.

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

• Buy mp3 for $1

• Transcripts: BSP 1-14

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

Listen in your Favorite Audio app: Audible, Amazon music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and many more.

Emotion (BSP 11)

Emotion: The Science of Sentiment, by Dylan Evans, is the featured book for this episode of the Brain Science Podcast.  Thanks to Kate from the UK for suggesting this book.

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

• Buy mp3 for $1

• Transcripts: BSP 1-14

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

Listen in your Favorite Audio app: Audible, Amazon music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and many more.

Show Notes

This episode is a short introduction to the idea that our emotions are an essential part of our intelligence.

• We discuss the basic emotions, based on the work of anthropologist Paul Eckman.

• We learn about culturally-learned emotions, such as "being a wild pig," which is observed among the Gurumba people of New Guinea.

• Paul Griffiths introduced the idea of "higher cognitive emotions."

• Emotions seem to exist on a continuum from the highly innate basic emotions to the culturally specific emotions.

• The work of Joseph Ledoux and Antonio Damasio reveal that our emotions are an important element of normal intelligence.

• We consider how fear actually follows two pathways in the brain.

• We consider the role of the limbic system including the amygdala.

• We consider the relationship between emotions and mood.

• We consider how mood affects memory and decision making.

• This includes Robert Zajonc's discovery of the "mere exposure" effect.

• We briefly consider the question of whether computers could ever display emotions.

Further Reading:

The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (2000), by Antonio Damasio.