Emotion : pleasure and pain in the brain / Morten L. Kringelbach and Helen Phillips.

Introducing emotions -- A brief history of emotions -- Individual emotions -- Social emotional development -- Nature of emotions: pleasure and pain -- Emotion and cognition -- Emotional disorders -- The future of emotions -- How do we know it might be so?

Emotions are often seen as an intrinsic part of what makes us human; they underpin how we feel about ourselves, and our interactions with others. New discoveries continue to reveal more about how emotion translates into brain activity - what is actually happening in our brains to make us 'feel' the way we do. They are also illuminating our understanding of dysfunctional emotions - the emotional basis of addiction, or the maladaptive emotional behaviors that characterize our difficult, and sometimes pathological, relationship with food. Emotion presents the fundamental principles of the neural mechanisms underlying emotional processing as well as reviewing our current scientific understanding of pleasure and emotion. The book takes the reader from everyday conceptions of pleasure and emotion through to the latest insights into the nature and functions of emotions at the interface of psychology and neuroscience, before exploring topics such as the nature of subjective experience and future possibilities including emotions in silico.

Includes bibliographical references and index.