Emotions in science for many decades were non-exciting, and were believed to be a number of sensory perceptions, until the 1980's, when a doctoral student Candace Pert, changed that idea. In this paper I will briefly discuss the history for emotions and what has become the largest debate over 100 years which focuses on the mental and physical origin of emotions. As the founding fathers for this debate, William James, believed emotions originated in the body where as Walter Cannon, believed they originated in the brain.While emotions have stayed the same, the process in which they are understood has not remained, because they are now believed to be a part of the human body.
Through the discovery of small chemicals call ligands and the receivers of the chemicals called receptors I will explain how emotions are processed throughout the system. The system opened the opportunity to find that emotions are not confined into the brain only, but demonstrated to science and the world that James and Cannon were both correct on their theories.According to James theory of emotion humans feel emotions through pyshical action, meaning that the body tells the brain how to feel about an emotion. Hames argues that the body must act before the brain can resigester any emotion. In fear the heart pounds, muscles tense, and breath shortens, and for James the body first displays the fear pyschically far before the brain can register the emotion. Once the body has offically taken form of the emotion it is then transmitted to the brain where it is categorized as a spesific emotion.
The body sends signals to the brain in form of actions through visceral signaling, therefore The brain only absorbs what the body gives it. But James did not think of emotions as feelings but as sensory perceptions. Fear would be categorized as fear after the brain registered the sensory perception of the heart pounding, muscles tensing, and breath shortening. Emotions for James in the 1890's had a very different meaning to what popular medicine has given it and although the idea received recognition it was discarded.In the 1920's a student of James, Walter Cannon emerged with the theory that emotions originated in the head and systematically trickled down to the body.
Though testing on various animals he found that by electric jolts on the vagus, a part of the brain, the animals became highly excited. The body-demonstrated emotions when the electric jolts hit the parts of the brain, which meant emotions, were in the brain. Under Cannon experiment the body displayed what the brain signaled, therefore the emotions the body demonstrated were displayed on after brain instructed the body.For James the reactions the body took were the cause of emotion. For example in fear, James believed the actions of heart, muscles, and breath increasing were the causes of the emotion.
In defiance towards James, Cannon cut the vagal nerve, which according to James was the reason for emotions, and found that animals with the cut nerve still demonstrated emotions. Cannon believe the emotions began in the brain and through experimental physiology he proved his theory with valid data. For many years Cannons theory was widely accepted until the 1970's, when Candace Pert discovered that both James and Cannon were correct.Pert recognized that while emotions were in the brain they were also part of the body. Both theories only differed in the nervous system, because only 2% of synaptic signals are transmitted meaning that the signals from the brain to the body; if really transmitted, would move very slow.
In order to make sense of this idea Miles Herkenham supposed that communication between neuropeptides and receptors occurred through specificity, this meant that only one kind of ligand could bind to one kind of receptor making transmission very difficult.This makes the body a sort of chemical highway where ligands are the commuters and the receptors are their destinations the difference with this system is that no one could get lost because the ligands destination was predetermined. The nervous system after this was never again considered to work under electrical impulse, but through a complicated biochemical system that was able to identify target and receptor sites. When Tomaas Hokfeld, a Swede scientist, found that the classical autonomic nervous system contained about every neuropepited believe to be only in the brain it followed an era of discovery.Neuropeptides were not only in the brain but all over the body, which meant that emotions neither originated in the brain or body.
Crucial organs in the body contained neuropeptide receptors like the heart, spinal cord, and intestines. This meant that body organs could transmit information to the brain, which would partly coincided with James theory that emotions are in the body. The organs had the ability to feel emotion and actually transmit the 'emotion' to the brain where it was registered.As Pert states, the feeling of needing to go to the restroom is brought on by intestines who inform the nucleus of Barringtion, a part in the brain, and the locuse coeruleus of that need. In other words, the intestines tell the brain they need to empty themselves without having the brain remind them to do it, the body tells the brain of its necessity. After conveying the book for all the scientific data I will explain how both James and Cannon theories are correct in terms I understood.
The first example is stress which begins in the brain and stems down in to the body.Mental stress can be brought by many different factors and can have serious affacts and can even incapacitate a person. Excluding physical stress, stress is all in the mind and has no place in the body, yet people with high levels of stress are known to suffer from depression, aliment, and other emotional issues. According to Cannon the brain tells the body how to react which would be correct when discussing stress because stress makes the body function even though it is in a not healthy manner. But when discussing James theory, stress would not fit in to his theory because it moves from the brain down.
Therefore Cannons theory is partly correct because it does explain how someone under serious stress can accidentally urinate without ever receiving a signal. The second example is according to James theory that can be proven by physical pain, like touching something hot. Pain always begins in a part of the body and is transmitted by signaling to the brain where it is registered. In touching something hot the body first feels the heat, but does not register it as heat until the brain receives the signals.
Once the brain recognizes the heat it sends a warning signal that hurts the skin. Therefore James can state that emotions do occur in the body, but do not it originate in the body. James theory also explains what I previously explained earlier about the need to urinate, where the kidneys tell the brain about the need to pee. The brain does not just register many emotions ( like the need to pee ) that the body has because that would take too long, so the body must help by signaling emotional data.The receptors and ligands inform the brain about emotions, which can be the need to urinate, the feeling of pain, or other undetermined information.
Both in mental stress and in psychical pain the body and brain must have a two way communication system in order to convey sources of information. This means that systems must work together in order to communicate, the body must tell the brain how it feels while brain must tell body. It is hard to explain each theory on its own yet it was easier to understand it through personal association.According to Pert peptides and receptors are the biochemicals of emotions, because they are throughout the body, but mostly in the highly emotional areas. In accordance to the James-Cannon debate neither are completely right nor wrong, their ideas coincide and are equally correct, through observation it seems like the body and the mind are two different identities coming together to work as a whole.
Even though they are composed of the same chemicals both systems are very well formulated and it is amazing how well they operate.
