Neurotransmitters and Electrophysiological Changes Might Work as Biomarkers for Diagnosing Affective Disorders

Abstract

Affective disorders are the leading causes of human disability worldwide; however, the diagnosis is still hard to define, because emotion is the least study subjects in psychology. Recent emotional studies suggest that human emotions are developed from basic emotions, which are evolved for fundamental human lives. Even though most psychologists agree upon the idea that there are some basic emotions, there is little agreement on how many emotions are basic, which emotions are basic, and why they are basic. In our previous papers, we suggested that there are three basic emotions: joy, fear, and disgust. These basic emotions depend on the peptides and monoamines: dopamine-joy (peptides-reward), norepinephrine-fear (anger), and serotonin-disgust (sadness). Further tests with event-related potentials (ERP) found that joy, fear, and disgust showed the fastest response compared with other emotions, suggesting that they are fast automatic responses, which confirmed that these three emotions are prototypical emotions. Other basic emotions, anger and sadness, are due to object induced behaviors instead of sensation of object, so they developed secondary to prototypical emotions. Thus, we concluded that only joy, fear, and disgust are prototypical emotions, which can mix into other emotions, like the primary colors. In all, the neural substrates for all emotions, including the affections, are possibly monoamine neuromodulators: joy-dopamine (peptides), fear (anger)–norepinephrine, and disgust-serotonin. We hope these basic emotional studies will offer some neural mechanisms for emotional processing and shed lights on the diagnosis of affective disorders.

Anxious Personality Traits: Perspectives from Basic Emotions and Neurotransmitters

“…In recent years, basic emotion theory has stimulated a number of empirical studies. Thus far, the accepted basic emotions are fear, anger, joy, sadness and disgust [ 14 , 63 ]. However, some psychologists are still debating whether to choose dimensional theory or basic emotional theory.…”

“…Emotion is a very important aspect of personality, and emotions have a similar dimensional construction [ 12 , 13 ]. The dimensional construction theory suggests that emotions are constructed in two dimensions (arousal and valence), and all emotions can be located on the quadrant constructed with two major axes: arousal and valence [ 14 ]. However, personality is much more complicated than emotions; thus, emotional studies might help to shed some light in personality studies.…”

Editorial: Uncertainty Induced Emotional Disorders During the COVID-19

“…They can also be called core affects, or prototypical emotions. We also suggested that they are subsided by three monoamine neurotransmitters: dopaminejoy, norepinephrine-fear (anger), and 5-HT-disgust (sadness) (Liang et al, 2021). This theory can be called three primary basic emotion theory (Gu et al, 2019b).…”

Editorial: Neurotransmitters and Emotions, Volume II

“…Even though the last century has witnessed many progresses in emotional studies, psychological analyses have not resolved many of the core issues surrounding emotions (Xu et al, 2022 ), such as the number of basic emotions, and the definition of basic emotions. Although there has been no shortage of psychological research on these debates, for instance, there is little agreement about how many emotions are “basic,” which emotions are “basic,” and why they are “basic” (Liang et al, 2021 ). Anyway, studies of the neural basis of emotions in the brain might resolve these questions.…”

“…In addition, many recent emotional theories are introduced based on these three monoamines (He et al, 2021 ), including our three primary color model of basic emotions (Gu et al, 2018b ), which proposed that there are only three kinds of basic emotions: disgust, joy, and fear for all the animal kinds. The three basic emotions depend on the monoamine neuromodulators, 5-HT is the substrate for disgust, DA is the substrate for joy; and NE is the neural basis for sympathetic function, and for fear (anger) emotions, for “fight or flight” behaviors (Liang et al, 2021 ).…”