The emotions were once thought to reside in the heart, but scientists know now that they originate in the brain. New Imaging Tools Scientists have learned to use neuroimaging to see the living, thinking, feeling human brain at work. Both of these technologies have been designed to reveal signals that correlate with human brain activity. These approaches have been used to study the pathways in the brain involved in sensory processes such as vision , and in a variety of cognitive processes. Image is viewed as though the person is looking out from the page, so the left amygdala is on the right of the picture.
More intense colors show greater activation.
We are now at the dawn of an era when we can use these technologies to see pathways in the brain that underlie emotions such as fear and desire. In the near future, these approaches will allow us to see precise abnormalities in brain pathways that produce mental illness. Brain Pathways Fear is the emotion that has been most successfully studied. Fear is required for our survival, but when it is not regulated, it becomes responsible for anxiety disorders and some of the symptoms of depression . We have learned that fear depends on very specific circuits in the brain.