Genes, Brain, and Emotions


Book Description

The study of emotions has rapidly expanded in recent decades, incorporating interdisciplinary research on the genetic underpinnings and neural mechanisms of emotion. This book offers a comprehensive account of this interdisciplinary field of research, bridging psychology, genetics, and neuroscience.




The Brain, Emotion, and Depression


Book Description

There are myriad questions that emerge when one considers emotions and decision-making: What produces emotions? Why do we have emotions? How do we have emotions? Why do emotional states feel like something? What is the relationship between emotion, reward value, and subjective feelings of pleasure? How is the value of 'good' represented in the brain? Will neuroeconomics replace classical microeconomics? How does the brain implement decision-making? Are gene-defined rewards and emotions in the interests of the genes? Does rational multistep planning enable us to go beyond selfish genes to plans in the interests of the individual? The Brain, Emotion, and Depression addresses these issues, providing a unified approach to emotion, reward value, economic value, decision-making, and their brain mechanisms. The evolutionary, adaptive value of the processes involved in emotion, the neural networks involved in emotion and decision making, and the issue of conscious emotional feelings are all considered. The book will be valuable for those in the fields of neuroscience, neurology, psychology, psychiatry, biology, animal behaviour, economics, and philosophy from the advanced undergraduate level upwards, and for all interested in emotion and decision-making.




Neural Plasticity and Memory


Book Description

A comprehensive, multidisciplinary review, Neural Plasticity and Memory: From Genes to Brain Imaging provides an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the study of the neurobiology of memory. Leading specialists share their scientific experience in the field, covering a wide range of topics where molecular, genetic, behavioral, and brain imaging techniq




From Neurons to Neighborhoods


Book Description

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.




Gene-Culture Interactions


Book Description

Examining the interconnections between genes and culture is crucial for a more complete understanding of psychological processes. Genetic predispositions may predict different outcomes depending on one's cultural context, and culture may predict different outcomes depending on genetic predispositions - that is, genes and culture interact. Less is understood, however, about how genes and culture interact, or the psychological mechanisms through which gene-culture interactions occur. In this Element, Heewon Kwon and Joni Y. Sasaki review key findings and theories in gene-culture interaction research. They then go on to discuss current issues and future directions in gene-culture research that may illuminate the path toward an explanatory framework.




Emotion and Decision Making Explained


Book Description

What produces emotions? Why do we have emotions? How do we have emotions? Why do emotional states feel like something? What is the relation between emotion, and reward value, and subjective feelings of pleasure? These are just some of the question considered in this book, written by a leading neuroscientist in this field.




Genomics, Circuits, and Pathways in Clinical Neuropsychiatry


Book Description

This foundational work comprehensively examines the current state of the genetics, genomics and brain circuitry of psychiatric and neurological disorders. It consolidates discoveries of specific genes and genomic regions associated with these conditions, the genetic and anatomic architecture of these syndromes, and addresses how recent advances in genomics are leading to a reappraisal of the biology underlying clinical neuroscience. In doing so, it critically examines the promise and limitations of these discoveries toward treatment, and to the interdisciplinary nature of understanding brain and behavior. Coverage includes new discoveries regarding autism, epilepsy, intellectual disability, dementias, movement disorders, language impairment, disorders of attention, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Genomics, Circuits, and Pathways in Clinical Neuropsychiatry focuses on key concepts, challenges, findings, and methods in genetics, genomics, molecular pathways, brain circuitry, and related neurobiology of neurologic and psychiatric disorders. - Provides interdisciplinary appeal in psychiatry, neurology, neuroscience, and genetics - Identifies key concepts, methods, and findings - Includes coverage of multiple disorders from autism to schizophrenia - Reviews specific genes associated with disorders - Discusses the genetic architecture of these syndromes - Explains how recent findings are influencing the understanding of biology - Clarifies the promise of these findings for future treatment




The Oxford Handbook of Emotion Dysregulation


Book Description

Emotion dysregulation-which is often defined as the inability to modulate strong affective states including impulsivity, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety-is observed in nearly all psychiatric disorders. These include internalizing disorders such as panic disorder and major depression, externalizing disorders such as conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder, and various other disorders including schizophrenia, autism, and borderline personality disorder. Among many affected individuals, precursors to emotion dysregulation appear early in development, and often predate the emergence of diagnosable psychopathology. Collaborative work by Drs. Beauchaine and Crowell, and work by many others, suggests that emotion dysregulation arises from both familial (coercion, invalidation, abuse, neglect) and extra-familial (deviant peer group affiliations, social reinforcement) mechanisms. These studies point toward strategies for prevention and intervention. The Oxford Handbook of Emotion Dysregulation brings together experts whose work cuts across levels of analysis, including neurobiological, cognitive, and social, in studying emotion dysregulation. Contributing authors describe how early environmental risk exposures shape emotion dysregulation, how emotion dysregulation manifests in various forms of mental illness, and how emotion dysregulation is most effectively assessed and treated. This is the first text to assemble a highly accomplished group of authors to address conceptual issues in emotion dysregulation research, define the emotion dysregulation construct at levels of cognition, behavior, and social dynamics, describe cutting edge assessment techniques at neural, psychophysiological, and behavioral levels of analysis, and present contemporary treatment strategies. Conceptualizing emotion dysregulation as a core vulnerability to psychopathology is consistent with modern transdiagnostic approaches to diagnosis and treatment, including the Research Domain Criteria and the Unified Protocol, respectively.




Mind-Brain-Gene: Toward Psychotherapy Integration


Book Description

An exploration of the ways the immune system, epigenetics, affect regulation, and attachment intersect in mental health. The evolution of psychotherapy in the 21st Century demands integration. Instead of choosing from the blizzard of modalities and schools of the past, therapists must move toward finding common denominators among them. Similarly, today’s psychotherapy necessitates the integration of the mind and body, not the past practice of compartmentalization of mental health and physical health. This book contributes to the sea change in how we conceptualize mental health problems and their solutions. Mind-Brain-Gene describes the feedback loops between the multiple systems contributing to the emergence of the mind and the experience of the self. It explains how our mental operating networks “self”-organize, drawing from and modifying our memory systems to establish and maintain mental health. Synthesizing research in psychoneuroimmunology and epigenetics with interpersonal neurobiology and research on integrated psychotherapeutic approaches, John Arden explores how insecure attachment, deprivation, child abuse, and trauma contribute to anxiety disorders and depression to produce epigenetic affects. To help people suffering from anxiety and depression, it is necessary to make sense of the multidirectional feedback loops between the stress systems and the dysregulation of the immune system that lead to those conditions. Successful psychotherapy modifies the feedback loops among the self-maintenance systems. Through the orchestration of the mental operating networks, psychotherapy promotes the re-regulation of immune system functions, stress systems, nutrition, microbiome (gut bacteria), sleep, physical inactivity, affect regulation, and cognition. This book makes a strong case for healthcare and psychotherapy to be combined—together they can revolutionize the way we conceive of, and attain, optimal health in the 21st Century.




Handbook of Emotion Regulation, First Edition


Book Description

This authoritative volume provides a comprehensive road map of the important and rapidly growing field of emotion regulation. Each of the 30 chapters in this handbook reviews the current state of knowledge on the topic at hand, describes salient research methods, and identifies promising directions for future investigation. The contributors—who are the foremost experts in the field—address vital questions about the neurobiological and cognitive bases of emotion regulation, how we develop and use regulatory strategies across the lifespan, individual differences in emotion regulation, social psychological approaches, and implications for psychopathology, clinical interventions, and health.