What are the causes of perceived emotions?

SamBridge

As as I understand it, there's some event and there's neurological connections between neurons triggered by the release of a chemical which triggers the signal that travels through other neurons that eventually reaches the hypothalamus which releases that would eventually cause the perceived feeling of let's say...anger. How exactly does that chemical go about "causing" that feeling? The chemical get's released, does it get released through the brain?

jedishrfu

perhaps this will help, its at a higher level than cell to cell

http://lakesideconnect.com/anger-and...-in-the-brain/

and this description too:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...3190007AANiNoU

SamBridge

So it seems to make sense in layman terms for the most part, but it seems to be missing a few details. It says an emotional "charge". The data is sent "limbic" system if its a powerful enough of a "charge". Does this refer to an electro-magnetic charge such as that it shifts the dynamic equilibrium of a reversible reaction involving different charged ions that are broken by water or that the data get's passed throuh the brain, the signal is sent to many neurons, or if "enough" of the chemical is released and builds up, it essentially opens/overrides the gateway to the limbic system? And by what process exactly?
Then the other detail is that it says the hormones are "released", but where are they released, and upon their release, what sequence of events following leads to the perception of physical and emotional "alarm"?

jedishrfu

We don't know enough about the brain to get into the molecular circuitry like we do with computers. We do know that ther are neurotransmitters that propagate signals from one neuron to the next. We know that when you recall a memory you simultaneously destroy it and recreate it in a slightly different form. We know that emotions are processed by certain parts of the brain and that rational thinking is done in other parts. But we don't know the full details of how all that works at the level of a computing system.