“You give me fever”*…
People drew maps of body locations where they feel basic emotions (top row) and more complex ones (bottom row). Hot colors show regions that people say are stimulated during the emotion. Cool colors indicate deactivated areas
When a team of scientists in Finland asked people to map out where they felt different emotions on their bodies, they found that the results were surprisingly consistent, even across cultures.
People reported that happiness and love sparked activity across nearly the entire body, while depression had the opposite effect: It dampened feelings in the arms, legs and head. Danger and fear triggered strong sensations in the chest area, the volunteers said. And anger was one of the few emotions that activated the arms…
Read the whole story at “Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over,” and peruse the research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
* from “Fever,” written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, who used the pseudonym “John Davenport.” It was originally recorded by Little Willie John in 1956, then covered by various artists, notably Peggy Lee, Elvis Presley, Ella Fitzgerald, Usha Uthup, Ray Charles, Nancy Sinatra, The McCoys, The Blues Band, Boney M., Amanda Lear, La Lupe, Madonna, Fishtank Ensemble, The Jam, The Cramps, Wanda Jackson, Bette Midler, Michael Bublé, and Suzi Quatro
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As we as we try to recall whether it’s “mind over body” or “body over mind,” we might send emotional birthday greetings to Karl Sune Detlof Bergström; he was born on this date in 1916. An accomplished biochemist, Bergström shared the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane for the isolation, identification, and analysis of prostaglandins and related biologically active substances. As these biochemical compounds influence such physiological phenomena in mammals as blood pressure and body temperature, they are surely active in the reactions mapped by the Finns, above.
