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Commentary by Antonio R. Damasio (Iowa City)Antonio R.
Damasio
a
aUniversity of Iowa, College of Medicine, Department of
Neurology, Iowa City, IA 52242,
e-mail:
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.
To cite this article:Antonio R. Damasio (1999) Commentary by
Antonio R. Damasio (Iowa City), Neuropsychoanalysis:
AnInterdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the
Neurosciences, 1:1, 38-39, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.1999.10773242
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Ryff, C. D., Singer, B. (1998), The contours of positive
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ommentary by Antonio R. Damasio (Iowa City)
I must begin this brief comment by confessing that I
read Freud in college, 30 years ago, and that in spite
of
the delight and admiration he caused in me, I have
only returned to check quotes and, once again with
great delight, to
Civilization and Its Discontents
(1930). Thus my words are based on memories that
may not be accurate although they have been sup
ported, in part, by the helpful Freud quotes in Solms
and Nersessian's interesting article. Under the circum
stances, I will comment only on the main ideas that
came to mind as I read the target article and the
thoughtful reaction to it prepared by Panksepp.
It makes good sense, given Freud's status as
biologist (yes, I think he was a biologist) and cultural
figure, to attempt a critical rereading
of
his writings
from the perspective
of
contemporary neuroscience,
cognitive science, and philosophy. It is important,
however, to turn the enterprise into a slowly evolving
project rather than attempt to fashion a position
paper based on the efforts
of
willing experts. There
are good reasons to choose the former. First, the topics
that have the most relevance to Freud's own thinking
are now receiving ample scientific attention. Second,
the scientific evidence on these topics is changing so
Antonio R Damasio, M.D., is M N Van Allen Professor and
Head,
Department
of
Neurology, University
of
Iowa, College
of
Medicine.
Antonio R. Damasio
Siegel, A., Schubert,
K
L.,
Shaikh, M. B. (1997), Neuro
transmitters regulating defensive rage behavior in the cat.
Neurosci.
Biobehav. Rev. 21:733-742.
Solms,
M
(1996), Was sind Affekte?
Psyche 50:485-522.
(1997), The Neuropsychology of Dreams: A Clin
ico-Anatomical Study.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Thayer, R E. (1989),
The Biopsychology of Mood
and
Arousal. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, E
O
(1998),
Consilience: The Unity
of
Knowledge.
New York: Knopf/Random House.
Zahavi, A., Zahavi, A. (1997), The Handicap Principle:
A Missing Piece
of
Darwin s Puzzle.
New York: Oxford
University Press.
Jaak Panksepp
Department of Psychology
Bowling Green State University
1001 East Wooster Street
Bowling Green 43403
e-mail: [email protected]
rapidly that interpretations are not stable enough for
anything but work-in-progress forms of discourse.
Third, as Panksepp correctly points out, some
of
the
aspects of neuroscience and cognitive science that are
currently least satisfactory are those that have to do
with emotion, certainly the matter closest to Freudian
thinking. The neuroscience
of
emotion needs to be re
shaped first, and while this is happening even as we
write, we have far to go. The neuroscience
of
emotion
will make more significant progress when certain is
sues are given the importance they probably deserve:
the missing perspectives of evolution and homeostasis
in the conceptualization
of
the emotions; the fre
quently missed role
of
the body, real and as repre
sented in the brain, in the process
of
emotion and
feeling; the scope
of
the neural correlates
of
emotion,
too narrowly conceived at present.
2 Notwithstanding the above reservations, I be
lieve
we
can say that Freud's insights on the nature
of affect are consonant with the most advanced con
temporary neuroscience views. Emotion and feeling
are operated in the brain, neurally speaking, in the
manner everything else is operated neurally, and yet,
emotion and feeling are distinctive on several counts:
Emotions are genomically preset and largely innate;
they have an indispensable ingredient (pleasure or un
pleasure); and there is a unique
within-ness
about
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Commentary on Emotions: Neuro-Psychoanalytic Views
them. I have proposed (without thinking
of
Freud but
coincident with him), that the body, real, and
as
repre
sented in the brain, is the theater for the emotions, and
that feelings are largely read-outs
of
body changes
really
enacted in the body
and really
con
structed in an
as-if
mode in body-mapping brain
structures. The body-mapping structures begin in the
spinal cord but coalesce most dramatically in the brain
stem and hypothalamus before continuing on in the
telencephalon. This ideaunderlies the argument inDes
cartes Error (1994) and is central to my proposals
on consciousness in the forthcoming The Feeling
What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making
Consciousness
(1999). The idea also allows me to
comment
on
the central question posed by Solms and
Nersessian regarding
an anatomical sense organ
affect perception and what is it that affects are a per
ception
My answers: I believe there is something
like an anatomical affect-related organ, in a meta
phorical sense, but it is not just a sense organ. It
is, in effect, an action organ that also
senses,
inasmuch as sensing is needed to control action. This
organ is not singular. It is, rather, a varied collec
tion of neural structures that includes subcortical ele
ments in brain stem, hypothalamus, and basal
forebrain, as well as cortical elements in areas such
as somatosensory cortices. In my framework this col
lection of interacting structures is called the protoself.
Activation within these structures results in changes
of
body state (real and
as-if ),
but part
of
the collec
tion of structures can also map the body changes. The
answer to the question, What are affects a perception
of, is that they are a perception of body states along
a number
of
biological dimensions, chemical
as
well
as macrostructural. The state of the flesh, real and as
if, as determined in par t by the very process of emo
tion, is
the
thing represented in feelings,
its
primi
tives, as it were. This is what causes feelings to be
felt but not what causes feelings to be known. I cannot
do justice to this problem here (it takes a book) but
the essence of that added element is that the process
of
consciousness supervenes on the neural patterns
which describe body state changes.
Regarding Solms and Nersessian s article, I
would caution against using functional descriptors
such
as
channel and state, or modali ty spe
cific and nonspecific because
of
the dubious se
mantic message they convey. The terms hardly
capture the complexity of related neural and cognitive
specifications. Likewise, I would caution against the
neophrenological slip
of
considering selected regions
as
providers
of
large-scale functions. The interconnec
tivity among regions is
of
such a degree that, in all
likelihood, the relevant neural patterns arise in a cross
regional and supraregional manner.
4. I sympathize with Panksepp s views on emo
tion, not just on several details
of
the neural machinery
but also on his take
on
the state of the field. This is
especially so regarding neuroscience s reluctance to
accept that complex nonhuman creatures have feel
ings-an attitude that goes beyond the necessary pru
dence over the fact that such creatures
mayor
may
not
know
they have such feelings.
In short, I applaud the effort to reconsider Freud
in a modern scientific light. The main barrier I see
before the effort, is the widespread view, long held by
contemporary scientists and philosophers, that Freud
did not propose testable hypotheses, that his ideas
were not relevant to the understanding
of
brain func
tion, and that he was not interested in the brain. Both
Solms and Nersessian and Panksepp make valuable
corrections to this view. Once the barrier is trans
posed, I see only one risk: premature closure. Given
the speed
of
change in current neuroscience, that risk
should be avoided at all cost.
References
Damasio, A (1994), Descartes Error: Emotion Reason
and the Human Brain. New York: G P Putnam.
(1999), The Feeling
What Happens: Body and
Emotion in the Making Consciousness. New York:
Harcourt, Brace.
Freud, S (1930), Civilization and Its Discontents. Standard
Edition 21:57-145. London: Hogarth Press, 1961.
Antonio
R
Damasio
University
Iowa
College
Medicine
Department
Neurology
Iowa City
I
52242
e-mail: [email protected]
