Can Your Brain Feel Anger Without Feedback from the Body?

[chirhone]

Can your brain feel emotion like anger without feedback from the body?

When you feel anger.. your stomach tighten and there is a lot of other body sensation.

 

[BillTre]

Can your brain feel emotion like anger without feedback from the body?

Yes.

When you feel anger.. your stomach tighten and there is a lot of other body sensation.

These are responses your body makes as a result of being angry. You can sense them and they can reinforce your initial feeling of anger, but they are not necessary.

There are probably, people lacking some aspect of this kind of bodily self-awareness, for reasons medical, genetic, of by some accident.
I would bet they can still get angry. You might be able to google that up.
Or try, googling "people who can't feel anger" and see what they have in common.

 

[chirhone]

Yes.

These are responses your body makes as a result of being angry. You can sense them and they can reinforce your initial feeling of anger, but they are not necessary.

There are probably, people lacking some aspect of this kind of bodily self-awareness, for reasons medical, genetic, of by some accident.
I would bet they can still get angry. You might be able to google that up.
Or try, googling "people who can't feel anger" and see what they have in common.

According to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio in his book "The Feeling of What Happens", you need those body feedback to even feel anger. Without it, the brain can't feel raw anger. This is why those who are paralyzed like Christopher Reeves or those lock-in victims (where only the eye can move) don't feel much negative emotion because of lack of body feedback. This is how the lock-in victims don't get crazy over their conditions.

Since Damasio mentioned it. So it's all still controversial? Or no definite answer?

 

[BillTre]

He knows more about it than me, for sure.
He is one of the better known higher brain function neural-psychological guys.
He's a medical doctor with patients, so he probably does have test cases like I described.
He writes books. You should read them.
I've only read some brain lateralization stuff he's written, long ago.

 

[Laroxe]

There is the interesting effect of increased physiological arousal caused by drugs or certain environmental effects. If people experience physiological changes they associate with certain emotional states and are unaware of the actual causes they will complain of feeling anxious or angry etc. Its one of the explanations for increased anger in untypically hot weather, feeling hot and bothered, in fact many forms of discomfort can be both cause and effect.
Its often considered to be a bad idea to try and explain our experiences as brain centred, that's not how we work, what would our "brain" get angry about without input provided by the body and then even if it could, how would you know. Of course none of this means you would have to be consciously aware of the physiological changes, in fact we often are not but we are highly reactive, a simple machine that measures galvanic skin responses shows marked reactions to any emotionally charged word. These were sold as lie detector type toys and are quite good fun.