情绪的奥秘

情绪的奥秘

如果你相信大多数通俗心理学所说的那一套，可能就会认为，人们对事物的反应没什么区别——恋爱中的风雨必定给人带来痛苦，被抛弃的人必定有个惯常反应。

But these one-size-fits-all assumptions are not true. In decades of research into the neurobiology of emotion, I’ve seen thousands of people who share similar backgrounds respond in dramatically different ways to the same experience. Why does one person recover quickly from divorce while another remains mired in self-recrimination or despair? Why does one sibling bounce back from a job loss while another feels worthless for years? And why can one father shrug off the botched call of a Little League umpire who called his daughter out while another leaps out of his seat and screams at the ump until his face turns purple? The answer that has emerged from my research is that these differences reflect what I call Emotional Style—a constellation of reactions and coping responses that differ in kind, intensity, and duration. Just as each person has a unique fingerprint and a unique face, each of us has a unique emotional profile.

 然而这种一概而论的假设并不正确。有关情绪的神经生物学问题，我研究了数十载，阅人无数，发现很多经历相似的人面对同样的事情却表现得截然相反。同是离婚，为什么有的人能很快放下，有的人却难以逾越自责与绝望的心坎？同是失业，为什么有的人能马上重整旗鼓，有的人却一天天颓废下去？同是自己的女儿被少棒队裁判吹黑哨、罚下场，为什么有的父亲无动于衷，有的父亲却暴跳如雷，破口大骂，以致脸色发青？所有问题都指向同一个答案，我在研究过程中称之为“情绪风格”，即每个人的情绪反应都有着不同的类型、强度和持续时间。正如人们指纹不同，长相各异，每个人的情感面貌也独一无二。

That may seem as obvious as stating that everyone has a unique personality. But personality is not grounded in identifiable neurological mechanisms; it has not been traced to specific patterns of neural activity in the brain. This is where the theory of Emotional Style breaks new ground: through neuroimaging and other methodologies, I have traced Emotional Style—and, specifically, the six components that make it up—to patterns of activity throughout the brain.

 也许你觉得这是明摆着的事实，就好比说每个人都有自己的个性一样。但是个性之谜目前没有神经学机制可以解释，科学家尚无法将个性与特定的神经活动模式联系起来。这就是情绪风格理论具有开创性的地方：通过神经影像等一系列手段，我终于明白了人的情绪风格——及其六要素——究竟与哪些大脑活动模式有关。

In making those discoveries, I have found that, in contrast to the longstanding scientific orthodoxy, Emotional Style arises partly from activity in regions involved in cognition, reason, and logic—functions that textbooks tell us are as unrelated to emotions as apples are to squid. That has come as a shock to defenders of the view that cognition—which many psychologists and neuroscientists consider the most exalted human capacity—and emotion (viewed as a lesser, almost animalistic trait) run on separate, mutually independent brain circuitry: the former in the “highly evolved” frontal cortex and the latter in the limbic system, which in humans is not much different from that of other animals. In showing that cognition and emotion are not so separate after all, these discoveries have rehabilitated emotion. From a behavior that was, as recently as the 1970s, studied for the most part only in rats and other lab animals, human emotion has now assumed as important a place in neuroscience as thinking.

研究的过程中，我发现了一个与传统科学观念相悖的现象：情绪风格的形成与大脑的认知、理智和逻辑区域有部分关联，而教科书一直教导我们，认知、理智、逻辑这类神经功能和情绪的关系就像苹果和鱿鱼一样八竿子打不着边。 这对于认知-情绪分离论者而言无疑是一大打击，他们原本认为，认知和情绪在大脑中归属于两种完全不同、毫不相干的回路，一个位于“高度进化”的额皮质，另一个位于原始的边缘系统，其构造与其他动物大同小异。毕竟，在众多心理学家和神经学家的眼里，认知是人类最高级的能力，情绪则是低级的、近乎兽性的习性。新的神经学发现证明了两者并非如此井水不犯河水，这使人们对情绪的认识大为改观。70年代，情绪还只是作为一种类似于动物的习性被人研究，研究的对象大多是小鼠这类实验室动物，而今，情绪在神经学领域终于取得了和思维同等重要的地位。

 

Jill Greenberg for Newsweek; Photo illustration by Newsweek

（《新闻周刊》吉尔·格林伯格 摄；《新闻周刊》插图）

Locating the bases of emotion at least partly in the brain’s seat of reason has several practical implications. None is more intriguing than this: it is possible to transform your Emotional Style through systematic mental practice.

情绪的产生与大脑掌管理智的区域至少有部分关联，这一发现颇具现实意义，其中最吸引人的，莫过于利用这一原理，通过系统的心理训练改变人的情绪风格。

It is hard to exaggerate what a break this is from the conventional wisdom in psychology and neuroscience. From the earliest days of brain mapping—determining which regions are responsible for which functions—neuroscientists traced feelings and thoughts to structures that were barely within hailing distance of each other. The limbic system deep in the brain, including the amygdala and hippocampus, seemed to be the brain’s holy terror of a 2-year-old, the site of anger, fear, and anxiety, as well as positive emotions. The frontal cortex, just behind the forehead, was the exalted thinker, where forethought and judgment, reason and volition, attention and cognition came from. As recently as the 1980s, neuroscientists focused almost exclusively on cognition and the other functions of the frontal cortex; emotions were deemed of so little interest that neuroscience left them to psychology.

这种理论给传统心理学和神经学带来的革新意义非比寻常，再怎么强调也不为过。在人类绘制大脑图谱的早期，也就是定位大脑功能区域的阶段，神经学家划分出来的情感区和思维区相距甚远：边缘系统深居脑内，其中包含杏仁核和海马区，它就像个两岁小魔头，掌控着愤怒、恐惧、焦虑和积极的情绪力量；额皮质就位于前额后方，它是高雅的思想者，掌管着人的远见与判断、理智与意志、专注与认知。就在80年代，神经学家的注意力还仅仅集中在认知等额皮质的功能上，情绪问题注定无人问津，它不过是心理学家的领域。

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 http://www./newsweek/2012/02/19/how-resilient-are-you.html

The first crack in this wall came in the 1980s. The neurobiology of emotion was still a backwater, but a few scientists were beginning to pay more attention to feelings, particularly in the context of depression. Inspired by one of them, I launched experiments using electrodes to measure brain activity in people whose emotional state we manipulated in the lab. By showing them upsetting, fearful, or uplifting videos and photos, for instance, and monitoring their response, we discovered that how well and how quickly a person is able to bounce back from adversity has nothing to do with activity in what scientists identify as the brain’s emotion centers. Instead, the ability to vanquish feelings of grief, anger, or other negative emotions reflects activity in the prefrontal cortex. In this research, we found that Resilience—one of the six elements of Emotional Style—is marked by greater left versus right activation in the prefrontal cortex: a lack of Resilience comes from higher right prefrontal activation. The amount of activation in the left prefrontal region of a Resilient person can be 30 times that in someone who is not Resilient.

这种情况一直持续到80年代才出现一丝转机。虽然有关情绪问题的神经生物学研究依然停滞不前，但一些科学家开始对情绪表现出更多的兴趣，尤其是在抑郁症的研究领域。受其中一位科学家的启发，我开始着手相关试验，用电极测试受试者的脑电活动，同时以特定的方式影响他们的情绪，比方说放映阴沉可怕或鼓舞人心的视频、图片等等。通过观察他们的反应，我们发现，一个人从消极情绪中复原的程度和速度与科学家认定的情绪中枢的神经活动毫不相干。与此相反，平复悲痛、愤怒等消极情绪的能力反映的是额前皮质的神经活动。在这项研究中，我们发现，当左侧额前皮质的神经活动比右侧活跃，人的适应力（情绪风格的六要素之一）就更强，反之亦然。适应力强的人左侧额前皮质的活跃度甚至可以达到适应力差的人的30倍。

 

Jill Greenberg for Newsweek; Photo illustration by Newsweek

 （《新闻周刊》吉尔·格林伯格 摄；《新闻周刊》插图）

Almost immediately, we faced a new question: what does the prefrontal cortex do when it comes to emotion? After all, the prefrontal cortex was, and is, known to be the site of the highest of higher-order cognitive activity, the seat of judgment, planning, and other executive functions. How could it possibly play a role in a key element of our emotional lives?

 有了这一发现，我们几乎马上就面临着新的问题：额前皮质究竟对人的情绪发挥了怎样的作用？毕竟，人们一向认为额前皮质是认知活动的最高中枢，掌管着判断、规划等决策活动。 它怎么会在人的情感生活中发挥举足轻重的作用呢？

One clue came from the large bundles of neurons running between certain regions of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. The amygdala is involved in, among other things, negative emotion and distress, snapping to attention and activity when we feel anxious, afraid, or threatened. Perhaps the left prefrontal cortex inhibits the amygdala and, through this mechanism, helps to facilitate rapid recovery from adversity.

 要找到这一问题的答案，其中一个线索就是额前皮质和杏仁核的某些区域之间连接着大量的神经元。杏仁核同许多事物有关，其中包括痛苦等消极情绪的产生。当人们感到焦虑、恐惧或受到威胁，杏仁核就会兴奋。有一种可能是左侧额前皮质会抑制杏仁核的活动，进而通过这一机制迅速提振人的精神。

In a major experiment testing this idea, my colleagues and I fitted volunteers with electrodes to measure their brain activity and then showed them 51 pictures on a video monitor. One third of the pictures depicted upsetting images such as a baby with a tumor growing out of his eye; one third showed something happy, such as a radiant mother embracing her infant; one third showed a neutral scene such as a nondescript room. Sometimes during or after a picture, the volunteer would hear a short burst of noise that made him blink involuntarily. A large body of research had established that when people are in a negative emotional state, these blinks are a little stronger than when we are in a neutral emotional state, and much stronger than in a positive state.

 为了验证这种可能性，我和同事进行了一场大型试验，我们给志愿者戴上电极，监测他们的大脑活动，同时通过视频监控器向他们展示51张图片。其中三分之一是令人痛心的图景，比如一个婴儿眼中突出一块肿瘤；三分之一是令人愉悦的场景，比如一位母亲满脸幸福地抱着刚出生的宝宝；剩下三分之一不会引起情感反应的场景，比如一间毫无特点的房间。志愿者看图的过程中，我们会冷不防制造一点声响，使他们不自觉地眨眼。大量的试验表明，情绪积极时，志愿者只会轻轻眨眼，而情绪消极时，这样的动作明显更加用力；心平气和时，眨眼的动作强度稍轻于后者。

Jill Greenberg for Newsweek; Photo illustration by Newsweek

  （《新闻周刊》吉尔·格林伯格 摄；《新闻周刊》插图）

What we found, in a nutshell, is that people with greater activation on the left side of the prefrontal cortex recovered much more quickly even from the strongest feelings of disgust, anger, and fear evoked by the images. From this, we inferred that the left prefrontal sends inhibitory signals to the amygdala, instructing it to quiet down. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex actually shortens the period of amygdala activation, allowing the brain to bounce back from an upsetting experience.

 总结起来，我们的发现是，左侧额前皮质高度活跃的人无论在看图过程中产生多么强烈的厌恶、愤怒、恐惧等消极情绪都能很快恢复过来。我们由此推测，左侧额前皮质向杏仁核发送了抑制信号，命令它平息下来。左侧额前皮质的活动实际上缩短了杏仁核的兴奋时间，使受刺激的大脑尽快平静下来。

Thanks to MRI, we now also know that there is a second element at play: the more axons you have connecting one neuron to another between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, the more resilient you are. The less of this “white matter”—that is, the fewer the highways leading from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala—the less resilient you are.

 通过核磁共振成像，我们还找到了影响情绪的另一大因素：额前皮质和杏仁核之间连接神经元的轴突越多，人的适应力越强。这种“白质”——即连接额前皮质和杏仁核的高速通道越少，人的适应力越差。

标题：Tired of Feeling Bad? The New Science of Feelings Can Help - The Daily Beast

来源：http://www.

推荐者： Nasca

原文作者： Sharon Begley

原文语言： 英语

Sharon Begley weighs in on the brain's control of emotional style.

 

In other words, both prefrontal-cortex activity and the number of pathways sending calming signals to the amygdala determine just how easily a person will bounce back from adversity. Through these two mechanisms, our “thinking brain” is able to calm our “feeling” self, enabling the brain to plan and act effectively without being distracted by negative emotion—not a bad working definition of Resilience.

 换句话说，一个人受刺激之后能否迅速恢复取决于两点：额前皮质的活跃程度和杏仁核接收安抚信号的通道数量。通过这两大机制，我们的“理智大脑”能使“情感自我”平静下来， 使大脑能在不受消极情绪干扰的情况下运筹帷幄，有效运转——这一点也是衡量适应力强弱的重要标准。

This is the kind of statement that makes people worry: Oh great, I must not have many connections between my prefrontal cortex and amygdala, so I’m doomed to melt into a neurotic puddle every time I experience adversity. And indeed, for decades, neuroscientists assumed that the adult brain is essentially fixed in form and function.

 下这样的结论可能会让人担忧。人们会想：好吧，看来我的额前皮质和杏仁核之间肯定没那么多“高速通道”，所以一遇到什么打击，我肯定没救了，这是脑神经决定的。当然，几十年来，神经学家也一直认为人在成年后大脑形态和功能基本上就定型了。

We now know that this picture is wrong. Instead, the brain has a property called neuroplasticity, the ability to change its structure and function in significant ways. The brains of virtuoso violinists, for example, show a measurable increase in the size and activity of areas that control the fingers, and the brains of London taxicab drivers, who learn to navigate the complicated network of streets in that city, show a significant growth in the hippocampus, an area associated with context and spatial memory. But the brain can also change in response to messages generated internally—in other words, to our thoughts and intentions. In my favorite example of how “mere” thought can change the brain in fundamental ways, scientists led by Alvaro Pascual—Leone of Harvard University had volunteers imagine practicing a simple five-finger keyboard piece over and over for a week. Result: the region of the brain’s motor cortex that controls the fingers of the right hand expanded. Thinking, and thinking alone, had increased the amount of space the motor cortex devoted to a specific function.

 我们现在知道，这样的观点是错误的。实际上，大脑有种特性称为神经可塑性，即显著改变大脑结构和功能的能力。比如说，小提琴手经过日积月累的训练，大脑控制手指的区域会显著增大，活跃度也大为增强。伦敦出租车司机在识记城市错综复杂的道路交通网的过程中，大脑海马区会显著扩大，这一区域恰恰与环境和空间记忆有关。此外，大脑会对内部产生的信息做出反应，也就是说，我们的想法和意图也能改变大脑。关于这一点，我特别喜欢哈佛大学阿尔瓦罗·帕斯夸尔-里昂涅（Alvaro Pascual—Leone）领导的一项试验，这项试验表明，“纯粹”的思想活动也能从根本上改变大脑。科学家要求志愿者在一周内不停想象自己在单手五指键盘上练习打字，结果是：志愿者大脑运动皮质控制右手的区域明显扩大。单纯的思想活动就已经扩大了运动皮质负责某项具体功能的区域。

When it comes to your Emotional Style, we know that changes to the neural structure of brain are possible. We don’t know exactly how much plasticity the brain has, but we do know that some neurally inspired interventions—forms of mental training that target patterns of brain activity—can work. Mental activity, ranging from meditation to cognitive-behavior therapy, can help you develop a broader awareness of social signals, a deeper sensitivity to your own feelings and bodily sensations, a more consistently positive outlook, and a greater capacity for Resilience. Do you feel yourself to be too negative in outlook? Pay heightened attention to the ways in which you can be more generous and upbeat, through processes therapists call “well-being therapy.” Are you very Self-Aware, so much so that your internal chatter threatens to take over your day-to-day life? Practice observing your thoughts, feelings, and sensations nonjudgmentally moment by moment.

 我们发现，人的情绪风格可以通过改变神经结构进行调整。我们不知道大脑的可塑性到底有多强，但我们知道一些刺激神经的干预措施——针对大脑活动模式的心理训练确实有效。从沉思到认知行为疗法，这些心理活动能使你对社会信号有更广泛的了解，对内心情感和身体感觉更加敏感，同时还能培养乐观的生活态度和杰出的适应力。如果你觉得自己对未来过于悲观，那就多留心一些能让自己心态放宽、心情更好的方法，可以采取治疗学家称为 “幸福疗法”（well-being therapy）的方式进行调整。如果你觉得自己太过自我，内心想法太过活跃，以致整个生活都陷了进去，那就试着不做任何评判地观察自己的想法、情绪和感受，慢慢养成这样的习惯。

This practice, known as “mindfulness meditation,” is one of the most effective tools for changing our Emotional Style. In patients with depression—whom we call “Slow to Recover” on the Resilience scale—every disappointment and setback is shattering. These patients need to increase activity in the prefrontal cortex (especially on the left side), to strengthen the neuronal highways between it and the amygdala, or both. Mindfulness meditation cultivates greater Resilience and faster recovery from setbacks by weakening the chain of associations that keep us obsessing about and even wallowing in a setback. It strengthens connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, promoting an equanimity that will help keep you from spiraling down. As soon as your thoughts begin to leap from one catastrophe to the next in this chain of woe, you have the mental wherewithal to pause, observe how easily the mind does this, note that it is an interesting mental process, and resist getting drawn into the abyss.

 正念禅修（mindfulness meditation）是改变情绪风格最有效的方法之一。对于抑郁症患者，也就是从适应力角度讲“恢复慢”的类型，每次遇到挫折和失意，其结果都可能是灾难性的。这些患者需要增强额前皮质（尤其是左侧额前皮质）的活跃度、增加额前皮质与杏仁核之间的神经高速通道，或者双管齐下。正念禅修能使人放下久久难消的怨念和挥之不去的执念，培养杰出的适应力，使人在跌倒后迅速爬起来。此外，这种心理过程还能增强额前皮质和杏仁核之间的联系，使人心平气和，避免越陷越深。当你做好思想准备，开始逐一解决内心痛苦的根源，你就会发现自己已经可以静下心来整理思绪、慢慢将创伤抚平。你会注意到这是个有趣的心理过程，同时小心避免掉入痛苦的深渊。

If you instead wish to move toward the Slow-to-Recover end of the Resilience dimension—perhaps you find you are not taking in the pain of others or yourself carefully enough—then you need to weaken connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. One strategy is to focus intently on whatever negative emotion or pain you are feeling, or the pain of someone you know. This can help sustain the emotion, at least for a time, and increase activation of your circuitry that is involved in pain and distress.

 如果你想反其道而行之，觉得自己对自身及他人的痛苦不够关心，想让自己不那么“冷血”，那你需要做的就是削弱额前皮质和杏仁核之间的联系。有种方法就是细细咀嚼自己或他人的一切消极情绪和痛苦。这样就能沉浸其中——至少能让情绪保持一段时间，同时增强与痛苦有关的神经回路的兴奋性。

The goal here is not to go from one extreme to the other: I’m not trying to change you from Slow to Speedy (or vice versa) on the Resilience scale, or from Cassandra into Pollyanna in your Outlook. Changing the patterns of activity and even connectivity that underlie the facets of Emotional Style is highly personal. It depends on what works for you.

我们的目标不是从一个极端走向另一个极端：不是要让你从适应强变成适应差或者从悲天派变为乐天派。改变决定情绪风格的大脑活动模式乃至神经联系是一件非常私人的事情。适合自己的才是最好的。   本文授权改编自《大脑的情感生活》，作者理查德·J.戴维森博士、莎伦·贝格丽。企鹅集团旗下哈德逊街出版社出版。2012年版权作者所有。