Scientists Map Emotions in the Human Body

It turns out that we may be able to map our emotions. Scientists have found that the most common emotions trigger strong bodily sensations and that the bodily maps of these sensations were different for different emotions. The findings reveal a little bit more insight into understanding emotions.

In order to better understand emotions, the researchers tested about 700 individuals from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The scientists induced different emotional states in the Finnish and Taiwanese participants. Then, the volunteers were shown pictures of human bodies on a computer and were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing.

"Emotions adjust not only our mental but also our bodily states," said Lauri Nummenmaa, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This way they prepare us to react swiftly to the dangers, but also to the opportunities such as pleasurable social interactions present in the environment. Awareness of the corresponding bodily changes may subsequently trigger the conscious emotional sensations, such as the feeling of happiness."

The scientists didn't just find the regions of the body where discernible patterns of bodily sensations were present, though. They also showed that the sensation patterns were consistent across different West European and East Asian cultures. This highlighted the fact that emotions and their corresponding bodily sensation patterns have a biological basis.

"The findings have major implications for our understanding of the functions of emotions and their bodily basis," said Nummenmaa, one of the researchers, in a news release. "On the other hand, the results help us to understand different emotional disorders and provide novel tools for their diagnosis."

The findings reveal a bit more about emotions and show that, in fact, emotions are biological in nature. By learning about how bodily sensations change with different emotions, scientists can physically see which emotions are occurring to a certain individual.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.