Free Joy, Guilt, Anger, Love by Giovanni Frazzetto Page A

amygdala. The amygdala lies at the core of our emotional life, especially our fearful reactions. If we didn’t have it, we would probably not be scared of anything! Similarly, an impairment in amygdala function prevents us from perceiving emotion. Indeed, a patient with rare lesions in both her amygdalas (we have one in each of our two brain hemispheres) just could not recognize fearful expressions in others’ faces. 20 Despite its small size (about that of your thumbnail), the amygdala has an intricate structure and consists of different parts, each with a different function. For now, just bear in mind that it has a core, called the central nucleus (CeA), and a more external part called the basolateral complex. A conditioned stimulus from the external environment – like the buzzing tone in the fear-conditioning paradigm – first reaches the thalamus, the part of the brain which serves as an integration centre between the outside world and our perception of it. From the thalamus, it travels to the audio-visual cortex where it is processed. But the signal can also follow a shortcut that leads directly to our emotional centres. Indeed, the thalamus has a direct connection to the amygdala, and to be exact, to the basolateral complex. It is here in the amygdala that the emotional memory of the buzzing tone, or whatever our own emotional trigger may be, is stored. From the amygdala, a danger signal is then relayed to the brainstem, which activates your anxious responses.
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    Uncovering some of the brain mechanisms underlying an emotion as complex as anxiety is a fascinating endeavour. The fact that we can describe anxiety in terms of neurochemical levels or patterns of neuronal firing in distinct brain regions is the result of inspired, dedicated experiments and a step towards the development of improved diagnostic and therapeutic tools to counter anxiety.
    However, much as these experiments on animals serve to dissect a few of its universal components, the lived experience of anxiety, that which seeps deep through our existence as human beings, remains thereby unexplored.
    The rats’ freezing reaction is comparable to a condition of paralysis and inaction in humans, but the sense of anguish and impotence, the horrid sensation of helplessness, the feeling that our future is uncertain and unpredictable are difficult to grasp molecularly and reproduce in an experiment. Let alone in a rat! Ultimately, anxiety is also the manifestation of a tacit awareness that something is missing or wrong in our lives, or that our values and aspirations are out of focus or under threat.
    Such contrast between scientific investigation and experience is central to the study of emotions. Science provides an outer picture of the scaffolding of emotions, constructed from universal, measurable and reproducible facts, whereas our direct experience of emotions is much akin to living inside the building behind the scaffolding. It is the fruit of our consciousness, or what is otherwise known as phenomenology, and is not entirely amenable to the scrutiny of science.
    The wind of anxiety
    Knowing the limits of science in exploring anxiety as an internal human condition, I was still in search of ideas and experiences I could identify with, in order to make sense of it. Eventually, I turned to philosophy, and particularly to the field of existential philosophy. This branch of philosophy is concerned with how we, as human beings, act, feel and live in search of meaning for our existence. For existential philosophers, there is no rigid, unconditional theory that defines us. Existence prevails over any kind of essence. Indeed, existentialists reject the primacy of universal laws, such as those of science, believing that we are born to seek and choose purpose in a world which is often messy and disorienting. Similarly, we constantly need to find our own values and our own meaning for our lives.
    Of all existential thinkers, German philosopher