PSYC18H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Sympathetic Nervous System, Autonomic Nervous System, Walter Bradford Cannon
Document Summary
William james located the origins of emotional experience in the body. (c) perception of these bodily responses as the experience of emotion. Contended that every emotion, from anger to sympathy to the rapturous delight of hearing a favourite musician, involves a distinct bodily reverberation in the glands that make up the neuroendocrine system. Neural signals from the cortex communicate with the limbic system and the hypothalamus, which sense signals to clusters of neurons of the ans and target organs, muscles, and blood vessels. The ans maintains internal conditions of the body to enable adaptive response to varying environmental events. The parasympathetic branch of the system helps with restorative processes, reducing heart rate and blood pressure and directing inner resources to digestive processes. The sympathetic branch increases heart rate, blood pressure and cardiac output and shuts down digestive processes to help the individual to engage in physically demanding actions.
