Central Neural Integration for the Control of Autonomic Responses Associated with Emotion

Abstract

The continual search for the neural substrates underlying integrated behavior has been aided dramatically by the development of tracer techniques based on axoplasmic transport, cytochemistry , and metabolic markers. Over the past ten years the major use of these approaches has been to revamp our ideas of how the nervous system is interconnected and, to the delight of publishers, to revise the textbooks in the field. The race to establish what is connected to what has peaked and there are now more attempts to use the knowledge and techniques to study the neural basis of integrated functions. Recent particularly fine examples are those of Swanson and colleagues (Swanson & Mogenson 1981, Swanson & Sawchenko 1983). In this regard there are few areas of research that need elucidation regarding the underlying neural basis more than that of emotion and its relation to the activity of the autonomic nervous system. For several reasons this area has been particularly refractory to experimental analysis. The first problem lies in the specification of what is meant by emotion and how to measure it. Psychologists have criticized the concept to the point where many refuse even to use the term; it is clearly a situation that calls for the use of a stringent operational definition,