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What are Emotions?
What we feel shapes our emotional life – and helps us react correctly and quickly.
11.09.2025
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- Grundlagen
- Anatomy
The Diencephalon
The diencephalon has four levels and performs a variety of tasks.
28.11.2025
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24.02.2017
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16.06.2017
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- Glossary
emotions
Neuroscientists understand "emotions" to be complex response patterns that include experiential, physiological, and behavioral components. They arise in response to personally relevant or significant events and generate a willingness to act, through which the individual attempts to deal with the situation. Emotions typically occur with subjective experience (feeling), but differ from pure feeling in that they involve conscious or implicit engagement with the environment. Emotions arise in the limbic system, among other places, which is a phylogenetically ancient part of the brain. Psychologist Paul Ekman has defined six cross-cultural basic emotions that are reflected in characteristic facial expressions: joy, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, and disgust.
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- Glossary
Anterior cingulate cortex
Like the entire cingulate cortex, the anterior region of the limbic system regulates drive-controlled behavior. In the perception of pain, it is particularly associated with the affective pain component - including social pain as experienced through exclusion.
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- Glossary
Cingulate cortex
A component of the prefrontal cortex located at the front of the brain. Like half a doughnut, the cingulate cortex wraps around the corpus callosum. Functionally, it belongs to the limbic system and is involved in emotion, memory, and motor function.
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- Glossary
Temporo-parietal junction
The transition between the temporal and parietal lobes – i.e., the temporal and parietal lobes – of the cerebral cortex. Here, in the posterior region of the Sylvian fissure, information from the limbic system, the thalamus, and the visual, auditory, and somatosensory cortex is integrated. Accordingly, the temporo-parietal junction forms an anatomical and functional hub of the brain that helps us develop complex abilities, including the ability to recognize biological movement or the ability to empathize with other people.
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- Glossary
Medial nuclei
The medial thalamic nuclei, especially the mediodorsal nucleus, are located in the medial thalamus and are closely connected to the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. They are primarily responsible for higher cognitive functions such as planning, attention, and working memory, but are also involved in processing emotions and motivation. In addition, they integrate complex information from different areas of the brain.
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- Glossary
Amygdala
An important core area in the temporal lobe that is associated with emotions: it evaluates the emotional content of a situation and reacts particularly to threats. In this context, it is also activated by pain stimuli and plays an important role in the emotional evaluation of sensory stimuli. Inaddition, it is involved in linking emotions with memories, emotional learning ability, and social behavior. The amygdala is part of the limbic system.
