Neurological Disorders and Emotional Dysfunction

The domain of emotion. as it has been conceptualized in behavioural neurology and neuropsychology, includes two major divisions: emotional experience and emotional behaviours. Whereas emotional experiences can be transient (happy, sad. angry, frightened, or surprised\ emo1ional moods have a longer duration. Moods include depression. elation, agitation, and anxiety. Affective disorders can be considered emotional states that are chronic and pathological. Emotions can also be described in terms of their valence (positive or negative) and their !eve! of arousal (!ow to high). Some have also drawn a distinction between primary emotions (e.g., happy, ad, angry, frightened) and social emotions (see Ross, Homan, & Buck, 1994), or those that derive from attachment (e.g., love, shame). There arc several types of emotional behaviours including, autonomic docrinc-visccral and communicative (verbal-semantic, facial. prosodic, and gestural-postural) with receptive and expressive components. Other dimensions of emotion include emotional imagery and emotional memory.