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Anticipating sensitizes the body

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Abstract

With emotional motivation the organism prepares the body to obtain a goal. There is an anticipatory sensitization of the sensory systems in the body and the brain. Presynaptic facilitation of the sensory afference in the spinal cord is probably involved. In a second stage the higher centers develop an action image/plan to realize the goal, modifying the initial preparations in the body. The subject experiences the changes in the body as a feeling. Three empirical studies supporting this description are summarized. This description of how feelings develop from emotion circuits is discussed from a phenomenological viewpoint.

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Notes

  1. When I refer to feelings, I refer to the experience of feelings, not to tactile sensations. However, when one perceives by touching, there is the feeling experienced as one touches.

  2. Skin conductance is changed by autonomic stimulation to the sweat glands. This changes the galvanic skin response, and is the basis for the somatic marker hypothesis of Damasio (1999, p. 80–81).

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    Anton Lethin

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Appendix

Appendix

The gamma motoneurons stimulate the muscle spindles to contract, which increases the proprioceptive afference to the alpha motoneurons and to the brain. This increases the tension or tone in the muscles. During preparation for movement there is presynaptic inhibition of the proprioceptive afference to the alpha motoneurons. It has been suggested that this inhibition may be a method to protect the alpha motoneurons from prematurely stimulating the muscles to contract, while the gamma motor stimulation gets the muscle spindles tensed and ready to vigorously support the alpha motoneurons when the actual movement is initiated (Requin et al. 1977, pp. 139–140; Lethin 2005b, p. 107). There is evidence suggesting that the proprioceptive afference’s pathway to the brain is not inhibited during preparation (Lethin 2005b).

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Lethin, A. Anticipating sensitizes the body. Phenom Cogn Sci 7, 279–300 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9054-2

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