IUBio

Rat emotions experience

cijadra at zedat.fu-berlin.de cijadra at zedat.fu-berlin.de
Thu Apr 9 15:48:18 EST 1998


Marco Constante Pereira <Marco.Constante*S*@mail.telepac.pt> wrote:

>    Heys,

>    I was just wondering if anyone knew if any experiences were made by
>removing the frontal lobe of the rat's brain, preferably related to
>emotions.
>    And, If i want to look for specific experiences (kind'a like this
>one) where can i look for them ?
>    I would appreciate it if you would reply soon.

>            I hereby Thank you in advance

>                    Marco Constante Pereira

I do not know if you mean the area down out front.
If you mean that one to me it seems more like a vast computer.
Among many other functions it is enabling to "take quite a critical
distance from yourself" and helps counter-controlling the "emotion
senders" which are in other places in the brain and body.
But to me it never seemed to be a bigger emotion sending station in
itself.

In a rat the frontal cortex is not as big, so I'd assume that the
"countering emotions"  functions is there but of a lower role.
As mammals of course we are related in many things, but rats seem to
be very good in smelling.
Maybe their amygdala has more to do with that than ours, and there
might be emotional connections to smells we do not have.
Also they are having emotional effects from certain tones they make.

It is hard to judge the emotional differences a rat has to ours.
It is very obvious that a lot of our programs (and maybe transmitters
/ hormones?) run parallel, but not all.    How do you want to judge
those that are not parallel, but are different?

So to know about the emotions of a rat might not be possible for us in
the first place.

If you mutilate another being to know what it makes might be tricky.
If you mutilate a human a lot of the effects would not have to do with
that area as such, but with other areas reacting to that area not
being crippled or gone.
And if someone else makes it with you and it was not an accident, then
ther are of course hell of a lot of emotions referring to the
"causers".

If I kick your shin and you show many emotions,
then even if emotionally you'd go atomic it is no proof that the shin
is to do with emotions.
.





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