Moral feelings (e.g., guilt, pity) and values (e.g., honesty, generosity) motivate humans to act on other people’s needs. Research over the last two decades has suggested that these complex constructs can be decomposed into specific cognitive-affective and neuroanatomical components. This chapter gives operational definitions of what distinguishes moral from other forms of social and emotional functions. The cognitive components that distinguish different moral feelings (e.g., guilt being related to self-agency and indignation to another person being the agent) are elucidated. An overview of evidence from brain lesion and functional imaging studies on moral judgement and feeling in general is presented, with a focus more specifically on recent evidence that links particular brain networks to specific moral feelings (in particular, guilt and sympathy). The implications of this evidence for understanding psychopathology are addressed. The chapter also discusses the implications of opposing models of frontal cortical function for the understanding of moral cognition. Suggestions for future avenues of research in this area are provided. The cognitive neuroscience of moral emotions and motivations may provide novel and powerful ways to gauge complex aspects of adaptive and maladaptive human social behaviour.

In this chapter, we focus on the neuronal networks underlying the socio-affective capacities empathy and compassion. We first provide definitions of empathy and compassion and give an overview of the historical development in social neuroscience related to empathy and compassion research, with a focus on differentiating between empathy, empathic distress, compassion, and related concepts of social understanding like Theory of Mind. We then examine the neuronal networks underlying these distinct social capacities and discuss the latest discoveries in this field. Next, we turn to the plasticity of the social brain and compare training approaches in their efficacy in improving socio-affective and socio-cognitive capacities. This is followed by the exploration of how psychopathological symptoms are differentially related to empathy, compassion, and socio-cognitive skills. Lastly, we conclude the main findings of this chapter and provide questions for future neuroscientific and psychological research on empathy and compassion.

Humans are inherently social beings, driven by a fundamental need to belong. To fulfill this need for social connection, neural circuits of reward processing are co-opted to value social rewards derived from social interactions. These circuits play a critical role in our pursuit of social relationships, enabling us to learn about others and strengthen connections. In this chapter, we delve into basic reward circuitry that facilitates social learning, and how such circuitry supports brain networks involved in unique social phenomena, such as theory of mind and empathy. We then explore how this understanding of neural mechanisms informs decision-making in complex social situations. Furthermore, we discuss how research into rewarding social outcomes can shed light on coping mechanisms for challenges such as isolation and pervasive social media use. By examining the interplay between our social nature and neural processes, we gain insight into navigating the complexities of human interaction and well-being.

There is growing evidence that language plays an important role in emotion because it helps people acquire emotion concept knowledge. In this chapter, we argue that language plays a mechanistic role in emotion because emotion concept knowledge, once acquired, is used by the brain to predictively and adaptively regulate a person’s subjective emotional experiences and behaviors. Building on predictive processing models of brain function, we argue that the emotion concepts learned via language during early development “seed” the brain’s emotional predictions throughout the lifespan. We review constructionist theories of emotion and their support in behavioral, physiological, neuroimaging, and lesion data. We then situate these constructionist predictions within recent neuroscience research to speculate on the neural mechanisms by which emotion concepts “seed” emotional experiences.

Human facial movements transmit a wealth of dynamic signals that provide crucial information about people’s emotional states. The temporal dynamics of facial expressions of emotion are optimised to hierarchically transmit biologically rooted and socially adaptive signals over time. We begin this chapter by formally defining these signals and by offering an overview of recent advances in research methods that improving our understanding of them. We then describe how the ability to decode such biologically relevant social signals emerges early in life and evolves throughout adolescence. Next, we discuss how experience, culture, and individual differences shape the decoding of facial expressions of emotion, before moving towards differences in processing static and dynamic facial expressions of emotion. Finally, we elaborate on the use of more ecologically valid experimental designs, cross-cultural studies, and understanding the roots of individual differences in facial expression processing to improve future knowledge in the field.

Experiencing emotions is part of human nature and our daily life. Sometimes, emotions can be too intense and we need or want to control them. Emotion regulation (ER) is a term that describes management of emotional experiences, regardless of whether we downregulate negative emotions or upregulate positive ones. Conscious, cognitive efforts to regulate an emotion have been subsumed under this term, as well as unconscious, implicit regulation of emotion. Effective ER has been associated with a number of positive outcomes, such as an increased general well-being, improved performance at work and in personal and professional relations, and, most importantly, enhanced mental and physical health. In contrast, deficits in ER are observed in severe psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Consequently, understanding the neural underpinnings of ER has become one of the most popular topics in affective neuroscience throughout the last two decades.

When thinking about emotional expressions, most would probably envision facial expressions (e.g., smiling, scowling) or vocalizations (e.g., crying, laughter). Here we focus on the emotional postures and movements of the body – an important, but fairly understudied, signal for emotion perception. During emotional episodes, humans often position and move their bodies in consistent ways that may (or may not) signal their underlying feelings and future actions. We briefly review the historical antecedents of this literature, as well as current knowledge on the neural processing, developmental trajectory, and cultural differences in the emotional perception of body language. We continue by examining the role of the body as a contextualizing agent for disambiguating facial expressions, as well as their inverse relationship – from faces to bodies. Future directions and speculations about how this emerging field may evolve are discussed.

Psychiatric disorders are highly comorbid and are not separated by sharp biological boundaries. Understanding the common mechanisms that explain symptom overlap in mental disorders is therefore clearly needed. Here, we briefly review impaired emotional processing and emotional dysregulation in affective disorders, with a special focus on unipolar depression. Affective disorders are characterized by abnormal emotion intensity, changes in the temporal dynamics of emotion and difficulties to influence the trajectory of emotions. Disruptions in emotion processing and emotional regulation are underlined at the neural level by abnormal interactions between cortical and limbic structures in terms of increased variance in functional connectivity. Emotional processes are also tightly linked to cognitive processes, which constitute main targets for therapeutic interventions in affective disorders.

Social adaptation requires humans to respond to others’ nonverbal emotional cues by selecting and executing adaptive motor responses. In this chapter, we provide a general overview of how visual perception of others’ emotional expressions, particularly threatening faces and bodies, promotes rapid processing and elaboration of multiple opportunities for action, at different levels of complexity. Notably, we will highlight how subcortical and cortical neural pathways interact to flexibly orchestrate our social behavior in response to threatening expressions, ranging from simple stimulus-driven reactions to more elaborated goal-directed actions. We will review recent findings from research on humans and other animals and discuss clinical implications, as well as future challenges and perspectives.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is the most sensitive technique for imaging of human physiology and molecular pathways in vivo. Here we provide an overview of PET instrumentation and modelling and illustrate how different PET techniques can be used for mapping the molecular basis of the human emotion circuit. We first cover the principles of PET imaging and the most common imaging targets, modelling methods, and experimental designs in brain PET. We then describe how metabolic studies and neuroreceptor mapping of the endogenous dopamine, opioid, serotonin, and cannabinoid systems have contributed to our understanding of the emotional brain. Finally, we review the recent state-of-the art developments in PET-fMRI and total-body PET, and discuss how these techniques can transform the landscape of systems-level biological imaging of the emotion circuits across the brain and periphery.