This book deals primarily with the role of emotions in the mechanisms of memory. It is a compilation of the lectures given at a course conducted at the International School of Biocybernetics.

The experience of emotion is a ubiquitous component of the stream of consciousness; emotional qualia interact with other contents and processes of consciousness in complex ways. Recent research has supported the hypothesis that important functional aspects of emotion can operate outside the conscious awareness. Primary types of emotions are found in animals, while secondary, more complex types are involved in interpersonal relationships. Emotions both influence genetic repair mechanisms of individuals and are responsible for group behavior. Many scholars and scientists believe that no scientific or philosophic account of consciousness can be complete without an understanding of the role of emotion. Contents: Emotion and Consciousness: Current Research and Controversies (A W Kaszniak); The Nature of Typical Emotions (A Ben-Ze''ev); Emotions Associated to Cognitive Revision as a Basis for Values (P Livet); Neuro-Affective Processes and the Brain Substrates of Emotion: Emerging Perspective and Dilemmas (J Pankseep); Imagery and Emotion: Information Networks in the Brain (P J Lang); Hemispheric Asymmetries in Representation and Control of Emotions: Evidence from Unilateral Brain Damage (G Gainotti); Hierarchical Organization of Emotional Experience and Its Neural Substrates (R Lane); Metal Representations, the Reticular Activating System and Emotions (B Cabott); Antecedents and Functions of Emotion Episodes (N H Frijda); The Communication of Emotion (U Hess); The Mental Representation of Romantic Jealousy: A Blended Emotion (and More) (D J Sharpsteen); and other papers. Readership: Postdoctoral students and researchers in biocybernetics, neurosciences, cognitive sciences and psychology.

For a few decades, the puzzle of consciousness, which for centuries was analysed by philosophers, has been finding a wide interest in the scientific field, where previously it was not entitled to be a member. It has become one of the most-debated problems in the cognitive sciences. The anatomical bases, neurophysiological correlates and elementary mechanisms underlying complex processes arising with consciousness have been compared with the psychological (perceptive, cognitive, volitive, emotional) aspects of conscious expressions, in normal and pathological conditions. Various theories, which attempt to fit systematically and coherently neural and psychological data, have been debated, proving the emergence of the phenomenon of consciousness.

This text provides a summary of what is currently known about the diagnosis, assessment, construct validity, etiology, pathology, and treatment of personality disorders. It also provides extensive coverage of the many controversial changes for the DSM-5, including chapters by proponents and opponents to these changes.

The experience of emotion is a ubiquitous component of the stream of consciousness; emotional qualia interact with other contents and processes of consciousness in complex ways. Recent research has supported the hypothesis that important functional aspects of emotion can operate outside the conscious awareness. Primary types of emotions are found in animals, while secondary, more complex types are involved in interpersonal relationships. Emotions both influence genetic repair mechanisms of individuals and are responsible for group behavior. Many scholars and scientists believe that no scientific or philosophic account of consciousness can be complete without an understanding of the role of emotion.

Perception is the first step in the whole of the cognitive processes (attention, learning, memory, categorization, imagery, intuition, inference, comprehension, thought, judgement, expression) which culminate in the reasoning activity and to which emotions make a contribution. The production of perception representations is correlated with the perception events. Such perception representations occur by means of the contribution of two kinds of factors: sensory signals which reproduce the spatio-temporal characteristics of the receptor modifications, and interpretation of the intrinsic ambiguity of such signals by means of unconscious inferences. Various interactions intervene between bottom-up signals from peripheral receptors and top-down signals from higher centres.

This volume looks at the associative mechanisms of the brain, particularly of the cortico-limbic and diencephalic systems, and also at the macromolecular effects on them, by integrating the contributions of various disciplines converging on one subject and from different points of view. It addresses the question of how so many different activity levels — the biochemical, physiological, and psychological ones — interact in integrative processes. The topics treated include brain reverberating systems and associative phenomena; long-term potentiation, learning, and memory; gene activity and brain activity; and gene expression and information processing during sleep.