9781422287736

11

working to map the human brain, identifying which parts of our brains do what. They have found that human emotion is a pleas- ant or unpleasant sensation that’s created in the brain’s limbic system. When scientists look at an MRI of a person’s brain when she’s feeling emotions, they can actually see the different parts of her brain lighting up as they become more active. All this has been going on inside our brains throughout our entire lives, ever since we were babies. Sometimes we feel happy, and sometimes we feel sad; sometime we feel angry, sometimes we’re scared, and sometimes we are bored. All these feelings come and go inside us. When we were very young, though, we didn’t have words for all these feelings. As we grew older, like Jeremy, we learned to put words to our feelings. At their most basic level, however, these feelings have no words. They’re simply sensations. Human beings have given these various brain sensations labels (such as amusement and anger, disgust and embarrassment, fear and guilt, happiness and hate, love and sadness, shame and surprise). Meanwhile, as we experi- ence these feelings, chemicals inside our brains are making our brain cells behave in specific ways. These brain responses do an important job. They direct our at- tention toward things that are important. When something makes Make Connections Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a test that uses a magnetic f ield and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of organs and structures inside the body. For an MRI test, the area of the body being studied is placed inside a special machine that contains a strong magnet. Pictures from an MRI scan are digital images that can be saved and stored on a computer for more study.

What I s Surpr i se?