Hey everybody,

can anybody recommend a good introduction (for a political scientist) into the biochemistry of emotions?

I'm currently studying conflict situation in the Middle East and I would like to learn more about the "hard sciences" behind emotions such as hatred, fear, etc. e.g. What happens in the human brain when it experiences fear? How are those emotions triggered?

(Sorry in advance for asking in such an ignorand way, but one has to start somewhere...I used the usual search-engines to find introductions, but the articles I found where all rather disappointing.)

 

Thanks a lot in advance.

can anybody recommend a good introduction (for a political scientist) into the biochemistry of emotions?

Hi Leonid - You might begin at a site like this:

 

http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter06.html

 

I've also found Scientific American to be pretty good at presenting complex topics in accessible ways to non-experts, so you might check out this article, too (it's presented as a dialog between an interviewer and an interviewee): http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/feeling-our-emotions/

 

 

There are probably other sites, too. If you have a specific question, just ask. The members here will try to help whenever they can.