Neuronas para la emoción

Do not fool yourself, no matter how rational you are, you need emotions to guide your life. The enthusiasm that drives you in many moments, the fear that paralyzes you or the joy that surrounds some social interactions are not accidental, but are useful tools that evolution has outlined. And it is that emotions allow you to make better decisions and that your behavior adapts effectively to the circumstances of each moment. In recent years, research in neuroscience has begun to reveal the circuits that, deep in your brain, manage the display of basic emotions, those that we share with many other animals. And many surprises have appeared. Everything indicates, for example, that there is an emotion that generates enthusiasm or motivation, which is behind the other affective states; that there is a close relationship between the panic that a baby feels when she feels alone and the sadness of an adult; or that the nervous circuits that drive us to play in childhood are the same ones that later turn on when we are happy. This book covers all of this and much more. For the first time, we can start talking about emotions supported by the knowledge that science provides us, and this also allows us to get to know ourselves a little better and to have more and more complete explanations of the genesis of our behavior.