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Duality of the Nature of Emotions and Stress: Neurochemical Aspects

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Abstract—This article deals with the biological nature of emotions and emotional stress. Various views on the biological role and causes of negative and positive emotions are presented in modern theories of emotions. P.K. Anokhin’s “Biological Theory of Emotions” indicates the key role of emotions in the systemic organization of purposeful behavior and gives a general description of the development of emotions at the initial and final stages of behavior formation. According to P.V. Simonov’s “Information Theory of Emotions”, the degree of emotional expression depends on the biological or social need and the difference between the necessary information and the information that the individual actually possesses to achieve the goal. This article presents the “Dynamic Theory of Emotions”, which characterizes the successive development of positive and negative emotions at different stages of purposeful behavior, taking into account the changing relationship between the predicted probability and the actual achievement of the result, as well as individual characterological personality traits. The “Dynamic Theory of Emotions” most fully reveals the origin, biological role and participation of emotions during different stages of the formation of goal-oriented behavior. The main theoretical provisions of the “Dynamic Theory of Emotions” were confirmed by comprehensive experimental analysis of the psychophysiological state of students. Educational activity is a real model of behavior that reflects the general biological patterns of the development of emotions and emotional stress. Emotional stress is primarily formed during mental activity of the brain in the form of pronounced negative emotions that arise in behavioral situations in which the subject is unable to satisfy his strong dominant need for a long time. Emotional stress has a dual nature: one side has a biologically negative—pathogenetic impact on health, the other—a positive value for adaptation of individuals, self-preservation of life, and evolutionary change in species. Two processes can be seen in the neurochemical mechanisms of emotional stress: one is negative, associated with the development of the pathological manifestations of stress, and the second is positive, aimed at adaptation and increasing stress-resistance.

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  1. Anokhin Research Institute of Normal Physiology, Moscow, Russia

    E. A. Yumatov

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Yumatov, E.A. Duality of the Nature of Emotions and Stress: Neurochemical Aspects. Neurochem. J. 16, 429–442 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1819712422040225

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