Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot

3 Neurochemical Networks Encoding
Emotion and Motivation
An Evolutionary Perspective
ann e. kelley
Specific and phylogenetically ancient motivational systems exist in the
brain that have evolved over the course of millions of years to ensure
adaptation and survival. These systems are engaged by perception of
environmental events or stimuli, and when so engaged generate specific
affective states (positive or negative emotions) that are powerful drivers
of behavior. Positive emotions generally serve to bring the organism in
contact with potentially beneficial resources—food, water, territory,
mating or other social opportunities. Negative emotions serve to protect
the organism from danger—mainly to ensure fight-or-flight responses,
or other appropriate defensive strategies such as submissive behavior
or withdrawal, protection of territory or kin, and avoidance of pain.
Brain systems monitor the external and internal world for signals, and
control the ebb and flow of these motivational states. Their elaboration
and expression, when elicited by appropriate stimuli, are instantiated
in complex but highly organized neural circuitry. Cross talk between
cortical and subcortical networks enables intimate communication between
phylogenetically newer brain regions, subserving subjective awareness
and cognition (primarily cortex), and ancestral motivational
systems that exist to promote survival behaviors (primarily hypothalamus).
Neurochemical coding, imparting an extraordinary amount of