Rating: 
Summary: Laypersons will like it; Psychologists will NEED it...
Review: For the layperson, LeDoux's book is an excellent account of the scientific search for understanding what emotions are and what they do. Comparing it to the several trendy books about measuring emotional intelligence isn't quite fair--this is not a self-help book that stresses the importance of good social skills (which to me, seems what emotional quotient boils down to). Instead, this book nicely weaves the best of psychological, biological, and cutting-edge neuroscientific research to give the reader a good picture of what scientists currently know about emotions and how emotions are experienced in the body and the mind. But despite the comprehensive scientific explanations, the book is extremely readable and filled with real-world implications. For a professor of neural science, LeDoux writes creatively (love those subheadings!), and I think this book can do for the study of emotions what Carl Sagan's Cosmos did for astronomy. For psychologists, particularly psychotherapists, this book should be required reading. Despite dealing with people's emotions everyday, few therapists can give more than a basic explanation of what exactly an emotion is, and how it influences human functioning. This is partly because most textbook discussions of emotions are either too basic or too difficult, are just plain boring, or don't make the implications for therapists clear. LeDoux's book changes all that--I've reviewed several academic books, articles, and texts on understanding emotions, and kept coming back to this one. Do your graduate students (who may be groaning under the pressure of a dry neuroscience text!) a favor and make them all read The Emotional Brain--they'll be just as educated, and a lot more excited as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to follow
Review: I admit I didn't finish reading this book, as I was so confused after a few chapters that I gave up.
1. It is unclear what exactly Ladoux means by emotion. Sometimes it seems that he is only talking about emotions that result in an action. (Reasonable as that's what you can test) But there are passages when he talks about "liking" somebody as an emotion. I love my husband and I don't like Tom Cruise but I would hardly equate those feelings as equal emotions. If I read a recipe and think I'd like to taste it, is that the same as the rage I feel against people who have hurt me? They certainly have different origins in my brain (I think)
2. I got totally lost in his review of the psychological studies of emotion. Yes, the development of theories is an important part of the study but when I still can't tell what you are theorizing about, the various diagrams and referrals to studies didn't help. I also lost the logical steps in the argument, perhaps because the summary was brief; I didn't see how B logically followed A in some of his review of the theories.
Perhaps the rest of the book redeems it, but if this book is written for the layperson, more care is needed in explaining the boundaries and definitions.
Rating: 
Summary: Needed to be more direct.
Review: I read this book in 1997 and as I recall it was very informative. Lots of illustrations, notes, and an indepth bibliography. However it may be a deep read for someone not use to the subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book!!
Review: I wrote a previous review of this excellent book some months ago that was well-received, and since then I've gone back to Ledoux's book, and have thought somemore on the implications of the limbic system. I had a few more comments about that, so I thought I would write another review discussing them. As I said in my previous review, Ledoux's book gives an excellent introduction to those powerful brain areas that underlie emotion and such things as aggression, fear, anger, and so on, especially the limbic system. This is the primitive area of the brain inherited from our evolutionary ancestors where emotions and violent behavior get controlled and mediated. Above it is the cerebral cortex, where more advanced thinking processes--language, memory, analytical thought, spatial reasoning, and so on--reside. The limbic system has powerful connections to the cortex, especially the frontal and pre-frontal cortex, where more complex aspects of personality have been found to reside, such as long-term motivation and achievement drives. But getting back to the limbic system, the amydala, for example, is intimately involved in aggression. It was found in one study that a large percentage of death row inmates had abnormal EEG's emanating from the amydalar area, and Ledoux discusses a number of other interesting studies related to this area. In another famous case, Charles Whitman climbed up a tower with a sniper rifle at the University of Texas and killed 16 people and wounded 30 before he was killed by the police in the mid-60's. An autopsy revealed that Whitman, who had been reported by fellow students to be a quiet, easy-going student and not especially aggressive, had an amygdalar tumor. Well, although the darkest and most violent influences of the limbic system such as in the above cases may not always be in evidence, it's malevolent power continues to affect much of our behavior in other ways. I think this has obvious application and implications to how human society and history has turned out, and I discuss that at the end of my review. I wanted to discuss one other study, which wasn't in the book. Another sobering result turned up by the emminent neuroanatomist, Orlando J. Andy, is that the limbic system is actually much larger both in absolute terms and also proportionally to the rest of our brain than in any other mammalian or primate species. In other words, although we did evolve the more advanced cerebral cortex, we didn't de-emphasize or shrink the more primitive and violent limbic system as a result; in fact, we expanded on it and grew an even bigger, more complex, and more powerful one. This was completely unexpected, from a comparative neuronatomy standpoint. This is not a good thing, because as Ledoux makes clear, although we think with our cerebral cortices, our behavior is mostly molded and controlled and motivated by the more primitive limbic system areas. This recent functional neurological finding shows why our history is the way it is. Although we can attain to more peaceable and advanced thought and culture sometimes, it's normally too difficult for us because the more primitive, more violent areas of the brain still control almost everything we do. Because of the malevolent influence of the limbic system, it's too often the case that humans would rather live down to their lowest impulses, rather than the other way around. This neurological finding explains what history has always told us, that we're really just violent uber-apes with a thin veneer of civilization grafted on top, and not a very sturdy or secure one at that, since it gets peeled off all too often in the violent annals of history. So overall, a well-written, very informative, and fascinating book, considering that our recent knowledge of the limbic system has pretty dire implications for the future of civilization and for the human race.
Rating:
Summary: Just the Facts, Ma'm.
Review: In reading The Emotional Brain I was reminded vividly why I never went very far in any field that required a concentrated attention to minutia. I just don't have the patience for it. The book is a good one, but you really do need to want to learn about most of the primary experimentation that has gone into creating a theory of mind and consciousness. If the outcome of experiments conducted on the brains and behaviors of rats, cats and monkeys is your thing, this is the book for you. If you are even a little impatient and want to "cut to the chase," I'd give it a miss and spend the money on Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter. I chose to read The Emotional Brain because I felt it would teach me a little more about the subject--which it did--and because I thought it was "good for me" to follow up on the details of the subject matter I had found in Carter's book. More readable books like Mapping the Mind can easily lead the unwary down a garden path unless one is well prepared. LeDoux provides that kind of preparedness. It is more in the nature of a textbook than a popular presentation of mind and consciousness. My only criticism of the textual content is of LeDoux's statement (p. 259), apparently based on observations by Wolpe, that hyperventilation during a panic attack "increases the carbon dioxide in the lungs and blood and results in a variety of unpleasant bodily sensations...." Indeed hyperventilation can and does produce unpleasant bodily sensations. If sustained long enough it can actually cause the subject to faint--and therefore stop the hyperventilation unless it arises from a metabolic condition. It does so, however, by decreasing the blood CO2 and producing an alkalosis.
Rating:
Summary: The Emotional Animal
Review: Joseph LeDoux reminds us that the human being is, first and foremost, an EMOTIONAL animal! And that much of what happens in human physiology happens BELOW the surface of the thinking process! In reading The Emotional Brain, the reader is reminded that 'intellectual' awareness is clearly not the be-all, end-all of human behavior, and that we are guided by our brain's instinctive, intuitive (emotional) perception of events, way before our 'analytical' interpretation enters the scene! This book is a wonderful study in human adaptive behavior, and why we need to devote more attention to 'instinct' and 'intuition' at the paleoencephalon level of brain function.
I found this book to be quite accessible, even to the lay person. LeDoux writes with humor and, although detailed, he brings the information into focus with everyday examples that make the reading interesting. Should be required reading for all clinicians, especially Music Therapists!
Rating:
Summary: The Emotional Animal
Review: Joseph LeDoux reminds us that the human being is, first and foremost, an EMOTIONAL animal! And that much of what happens in human physiology happens BELOW the surface of the thinking process! In reading The Emotional Brain, the reader is reminded that 'intellectual' awareness is clearly not the be-all, end-all of human behavior, and that we are guided by our brain's instinctive, intuitive (emotional) perception of events, way before our 'analytical' interpretation enters the scene! This book is a wonderful study in human adaptive behavior, and why we need to devote more attention to 'instinct' and 'intuition' at the paleoencephalon level of brain function.
I found this book to be quite accessible, even to the lay person. LeDoux writes with humor and, although detailed, he brings the information into focus with everyday examples that make the reading interesting. Should be required reading for all clinicians, especially Music Therapists!
Rating: 
Summary: Emotionality in a nutshell
Review: Ledoux outlines contemporary research related to emotionality from a neuroscientific perspective, yet retains a sense of humanity by exploring the psychological implications of current findings. Evolutionary biology plays a strong role in The Emotional Brain, such that emotional drives, such as fear, are inherited from our prehistoric ancestors, that conscious emotional experience can be reinterpreted as higher-order forms of survival instinct. Exploring anatomical areas in the brain related to emotional experience, such as the amygdala, and how projections from these areas to cortical regions influences behavior, suggest a physiological explanation for temperamental style. Even if you are not studying psychology or neurology, you will find that the contents of this book apply to everyday life and how we interpret emotional experience in general. Thus, I commend this book's scope and its ability to unlock imaginative flights, which will ultimately inspire me to design new research methods to approach unsolved problems.
Rating:
Summary: Ledoux explains fear; the implications are enormous.
Review: The implications of Ledoux's book are enormous. Ledoux, a neuroscience researcher, shows that our emotions are generated by separate independent neuro systems which work unconsciously; believe it or not, we do NOT run because we are afraid, but rather we are afraid because we run. He also shows that the emotional systems have a much greater impact on our rational conscious than the rational conscious has on the emotional systems. Passion rules reason. This has tremendous implications for the current thinking in psycology/ psychiatry (although they will be slow to pick up on it). And it explains why man has so much angst, why we don't learn from history, why man is so brutal. The importance of this book cannot be overstated.
Rating:
Summary: A long needed book
Review: This book is a long-needed look at how those parts of the brain that mediate emotion, primarily the limbic system and the medial and lateral frontal cortex, affect our behavior, thinking, and our lives. This is a well-written and thoughful account for the intelligent layman about this important topic. There are excellent discussions of the different limbic system structures as well as the frontal lobes. The sections on the amygdala I thought were especially good, and the discussions of how the frontal lobes and the limbic areas interact in various and important ways is equally good. Unlike other important areas of science, there are few really accessible books on the brain for the non-specialist, but I've noticed the situation has improved significantly in the last 5 to 10 years. If you liked this book and want to round out your knowledge of the human brain, I can also recommend the following books, all of which are similarly well-regarded and well-written: 1. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, by Antonio Damasio 2. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker 3. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, by V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee 4. Nature's Mind: The Biological Roots of Thinking, Emotions, Sexuality, Language, and Intelligence, by Michael Gazzaniga 5. How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligences, Then & Now, by William H. Calvin There are about a half dozen others that I could have added to this list, but I would read these first. In fact, I would start with Gazzaniga's book and then read the others, since his book is more of a general introduction, whereas the others deal more with certain special topics. If you read these books you'll be in pretty good shape in terms of having at least a basic understanding of current neuroscience. Anyway, good luck and happy reading.
|
