Teaching With the Brain in Mind

Three discoveries in the field of emotions have
changed the way we think of them. First is the discovery
of the physical pathways and priorities of
emotions. Second are findings about the brain’s
chemicals involved in emotions. Third is a link
between these pathways and chemicals to everyday
learning and memory.
The first element gave emotions something
“solid,” some kind of grounded reality that we
could measure. It was concrete information you
could see in an autopsy or on a screen. The second
discovery helped us understand the pervasive
nature of emotions. The third was the researcher’s
jackpot: the critical link that our very survival is
dependent on emotions.
The Measurement of Emotion
Neuroscientists usually separate emotions and feelings.
Emotions are generated from biologically
automated pathways. They are joy (pleasure), fear,
surprise, disgust, anger, and sadness. Crosscultural
studies indicate that these six expressions
are universal. The only emotions that researchers
have found specific sites for in the brain are fear
and pleasure. That’s why the earlier, biologically
linked models of learning were dominated by studies
on threats and rewards. Feelings are different;
they’re our culturally and environmentally developed
responses to circumstances. Examples
include: worry, anticipation, frustration, cynicism,
and optimism. Emotions are very real. When we
say the emotions are involved, we have a vast array
of highly specific and scientific ways to measure
precisely what is happening, including skin responses,
heart rate, blood pressure, and EEG activity.
It’s easy to get readings on a student’s response
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FIGURE 8.1
The Objective Nature of Emotions
to fear, but we don’t yet have a way to measure
feelings of sympathy, for example. Figure 8.1 shows
information we can use to measure emotions.
The Pathways of Emotion
Emotions and Learning
We can use information from the autonomic (sweat glands,
heart activity, blood pressure, and gastrointestinal); central
(electrical activity of the brain’s neurons); or sensorimotor systems
(respiration, eye movements, etc.) to measure emotions.
SCR... skin conductance response
Pulse... heartbeats per minute
EGG... electrogastrography...gastrointestinal system measures
BP... blood pressure
BEAM... brain electrical activity mapping
SPR... skin-potential response
ERP... central nervous system, the event-related potentials
fMRI... functional magnetic resonance imaging
EEG... electroencephalography
BR... breathing rates
RCBF... regional cerebral blood flow
MT... muscle tension
HRPSA... heart rate power spectrum analysis
MEG... magnetoelectroencephalography
PET... position emission tomography, blood flow measurements
SC... skin color, flushed skin
General feeling states and intense emotions of fear
and pleasure take separate biological pathways in
the brain (LeDoux 1996). (Fig. 8.2 summarizes the
areas of the brain involved with emotion.) While
feelings travel a circuitous, slower route throughout
the body, the emotions always take the brain’s
“superhighways.” In the mid-brain area, LeDoux
(1992) found a bundle of neurons that lead
directly from the thalamus to the amygdala. Some