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I'd go with lies, myself. Generally, emotion is something to do with the Limbic System, which, while it's all one system in our labels, is composed of many, many parts. Different emotions are localised in different areas of the limbic system; neuropsychologists have fights about exactly where, but the wiki article seems to have the consensus as I remember it.
It is probably true that these emotions involve the same chemicals. That doesn't mean anything. There's a limited amount of neurotransmitters in the brain (not that we have a complete annotated list of them, or anything). The main set, serotonin, dopamine, GABA, norepinephrine (adrenaline, basically) and acetylcholine, do the same thing for any given type of neurotransmitter-receptor (Though there's a couple of receptor types for each transmitter, which do different things). So GABA, for instance, is usually something which prevents brain cells from firing.
Erm, so. The chemicals are the same, the places that they exist in are not, and the effects of those places are dramatically different. Lots of emotional responses are learnt, and lots of emotions can be mapped onto physiological experiences without you being consciously aware of them. It is possible that similar states map to different emotions under different circumstances. That said, different emotions will almost always map to different parts of the brain.
Incidentally, there's a lot of work showing that the disgust response in humans is entirely learnt, so think about that next time something makes you want to throw up because it's gross. You might be able to unlearn that association, despite how visceral it feels.
... I hope I haven't made any too embarrassing errors, it's 3:30am and several years since I last looked at neuropsych. |
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