Understanding whether non-human animals have emotions — and how they are formed if they do — could provide new insights into the mental health of humans.
on and off in the brains of rodents and other animals to see whether they cause an emotion or if their activity is a consequence of an emotion.
That information "matters if you are trying to decide which type of neuron to study in order to search for a new treatment for anxiety disorders," he writes.But Anderson argues that doesn't matter. For him and others, emotions are internal, unconscious states of the brain's neurons that exist separate from a feeling, which is conscious.
These emotional states can be seen in behaviors like aggression, which have different properties — they persist and their intensity can vary — that distinguish them from reflexes, Anderson writes. Those "emotion primitives" are seen in the behavior of mice and fruit flies, and in the neurons in their brains that are associated with those behaviors, he writes. That suggests they are common and innate — but he says that doesn't mean flies' emotions are as complex as those of mice or humans.
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