In recent years, the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion in humans has constituted one of the most fertile research areas in cognitive neuroscience. Human neuropsychology has provided crucial insights in this domain. Careful examination of patients with neurological disorders showed that emotion, like memory, language, and so on, could be differentially affected by brain damage, whether caused by stroke, tumors, or other disease. Lesion studies give us not only insight into the constellation of emotion disabilities linked to specific brain regions but also valuable information about structural reorganization, functional compensation, and, possibly, recovery of the deficit over time. Following a concise methodological introduction to neuropsychology and the lesion method, this chapter will examine the principal findings derived from the application of the lesion method in patients with neuropsychological disorders, specifically those with isolated lesions of the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the insula. The discussion will aim to elucidate the functional significance of these brain regions and their roles in emotional processes.

This chapter explores the growing economic influence of China and its implications for state development. It develops a measure of China’s economic hierarchy and finds that Chinese support increases state capacity through different mechanisms than American hierarchy, primarily by enabling leaders to remain in power longer. The chapter also examines the interaction between American and Chinese economic hierarchies, revealing that their coexistence can undermine state capacity. It discusses the future trajectory of Chinese influence and its potential impact on partner states.

This chapter explores the effects of government-subsidized homeownership on dignity. I develop a two-part definition of dignity as beneficiaries' experienced agency in their own lives and in their relationships with others. This definition builds upon and engages with work in philosophy, history, political science, and international development. I further show how housing shapes individuals' perception of themselves and the future through quotes, causally identified effects, and a measure of dignity based on eye contact. Broadly, beneficiaries seem to be much more able to pursue their own goals and interests and assert themselves in society. I provide evidence for my theoretical mechanisms, which are related to wealth, certainty about the future, and the fact that housing is an important marker of status in society. This chapter highlights the importance of studying dignity in its own right, but it also serves as an important bridge connecting the effects on income and wealth, as explored in Chapter 3, to the effects on political behavior in Chapter 5.

Pavlovian conditioning paradigms have been a stalwart of animal research on fear learning for over a century. Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience research have led to new insights into the neural mechanisms of how humans learn to associate cues with threats, how these representations become bound to contextual features of the environment, and how they generalize to stimuli that are perceptually or conceptually related. By integrating information gleaned from patients with brain lesions, scalp electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and intracranial recordings, researchers are assembling a dynamic view of the distributed brain activity that generates conditioned fear responses. Innovative virtual reality technology, computational modeling, and multivariate analysis tools have further refined a scientific understanding of the component processes involved, which can inform future clinical interventions for treating fear- and anxiety-related disorders.

India’s welfare state offers a wide array of initiatives, including pensions, subsidized loans, school lunches, employment guarantees, food rations, and subsidized housing. Unlike other programs, subsidized housing transfers wealth, significantly influencing household decision-making across various aspects of life. It shifts psychological and behavioral outcomes related to poverty and enhances beneficiaries' sense of control and relationships. In contexts where the poor are often neglected, these changes empower beneficiaries to advocate for their interests within their communities. The study finds the greatest benefits in programs that do not require relocation and in urban areas with dynamic real estate markets. Property rights are crucial for success. The chapter finally highlights the distributional consequences of subsidized housing, suggesting both positive and negative externalities on broader communities. Overall, the findings illustrate how wealth shapes household decision-making among low-income, upwardly mobile citizens and emphasize the need for welfare policies that promote inclusive and accountable democracies, especially as the middle class grows.

This seventh chapter explores how conscience might be regulated on the basis of the theory proposed in earlier chapters. The emphasis of the chapter is on a broad sketch of how that regulation might work, as opposed to a model statute or other more specific model. It presents a series of nested connections between various stakeholders such as government bodies, healthcare institutions, third parties such as insurance companies, individual healthcare providers, and patients. All of these parties have roles to play in the regulation of conscience.

Through mapping the sociological origins of Palestinian doctors: their birthplace, class and family origin, early educational background, and university education, this chapter shows the social transformations of Palestinian communities during the late Ottoman and Mandate periods. It traces the development of the professional classes, from landed, mercantile, and religious notability, which converted, and sometimes supplemented, existing economic and cultural capital into professional education. It argues that throughout the Mandate period, the social origins of the professional community diversified to include families and individuals who gained mobility through sociocultural and economic capital. The chapter also looks at secondary and higher education as a meeting ground for the formation of lifelong professional and personal networks on a regional scale, as doctors were one of the only groups educated outside Palestine. The chapter builds on quantitative analysis of biographical data of about 400 doctors who worked in Palestine. Sources include biographical dictionaries, biographies and autobiographies, and various educational and employment lists.

While the preceding two chapters focused on the physiological domains whose motions take place ‘by nature’, that is, involuntarily, this chapter looks at the activities of the physiological system responsible for the motion ‘by will’. Galen depends on Hellenistic anatomists, especially Herophilus, for much of what he knows about the nervous system, but this chapter looks at both inherited knowledge and polemic interaction. In a rare case of disagreement, Galen criticizes Herophilus regarding the claims about the inherent sensitivity of the nerve tissue. The fact that Galen does not accept Herophilus’ experiments and maintains that nerves only receive capacity from the brain shapes his understanding of this physiological domain. The activities of the nervous system encompass not only voluntary motion but also sense perception and pain, and this chapter argues that each of them has distinctive implications for the unity of the living body as a whole.

This chapter illuminates the impact of the 1948 war on the Palestinian medical community and locates its role in assisting their communities during the Nakba. Within a few months, the British administration withdrew its funding from all governmental health services, most Palestinian Arab doctors were displaced, and casualties mounted. Observing the medical profession during the war, this chapter follows heroic stories of perseverance. Lacking any state structures or national independent institutions, however, these efforts were necessarily localized and short-lived, suffering from a severe lack of supplies. Largely dependent on private practice, the Arab medical profession in Palestine began unionizing only three years before the war and had limited resources of its own. The chapter reviews the resources mobilized to deal with these challenges and the community’s fate following the Nakba.