Emotion and Decision-Making Explained

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? How is the value of a 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, and does rational multistep planning enable us to go beyond selfish genes to long-term plans and social contracts in the interests of the individual? This book seeks explanations of emotion and decision-making by considering these questions. The topics covered include:

The nature of emotion, and a theory of emotion

The functions of emotion, including a Darwinian theory of the adaptive value of emotion, which helps to illuminate many aspects of brain design and behaviour

The brain mechanisms of emotion

Affective states and motivated behaviour: hunger and sexual behaviour

The pharmacology of emotion, and brain mechanisms for action

Neuroeconomics, and the foundation of economic value

Decision-making

Emotional feelings, and consciousness

Neural networks involved in emotion

The book will be valuable for those in the fields of neuroscience and neurology, psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy

Edmund T. Rolls, Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Oxford, UK

Professor Edmund T. Rolls performs full-time research at the Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, and at the University of Warwick, and has acted as Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and as Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His research links neurophysiological and computational neuroscience approaches to human functional neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies in order to provide a fundamental basis for understanding human brain function and its disorders.