Feelings can seem messy and hard to pin down. One moment you might feel anxious, the next excited, and sometimes both at once.
A new study suggests that the mind arranges emotions on an internal map, grouping related feelings while keeping distinct ones farther apart.
That structure could help the brain navigate emotional experiences, turning rapidly changing feelings into an organized mental landscape.
Understanding that hidden map may reveal how people interpret emotions, regulate them, and move from one feeling to the next.
Brain activity tracks emotions
Across more than 2.5 hours of short films, viewers’ reported feelings rose and fell in patterns that brain activity mirrored.
Working from those patterns, researchers at Emory University found that hippocampal and prefrontal signals recorded where emotions…