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·     investigated the importance of the limbic system in experiencing emotions. While using positron emission tomography, participants were asked to recall and re-experience incidents where they experienced sadness, happiness, anger and fear. Researchers checked that participants did actually experience these emotions. They also measured participants' changes of heart rate and galvanic skin response accompanying the experiential changes. It was found that brain regions where activation increased when participants recalled particular emotions were mainly sub-cortical. They occurred particularly in the limbic system. Contrastingly, neural activity in the cortex tended to decrease when participants experienced emotions.

o   Evidence concerning role of brain structures in generating, processing and regulating emotions comes from:

§  Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings

§  Neuroimaging (fMRI, PET)

§  Experiments (e.g. facial actions; electrical stimulation)

§  Brain damage studies

§  Emotions disorders 

§  And combinations of these (e.g. neural activation in depressed patients)