There is such a thing as hard feelings. Our emotions, a necessary survival mechanism, are persisting forces that manipulate our decisions and therefore, our life. The neuroscience of emotion reveals a way out, or rather a loophole: our thoughts actively shape how we respond to and experience emotion. At the neural level, our prefrontal cortex neurons, depicted to the left in bright yellow gold colors transmit excitatory signals down to the amygdala intercalated cells (light blue). These intercalated cells drawn blue in the center represent densely packed GABAergic inhibitory neurons acting as the gatekeeper of the basolateral amygdala (to the right with ochre yellow stain). They provide feedforward inhibition of amygdala neurons (to the right red colored neurons). This top-down control helps us override our dispositions and break free of learned emotional responses.

Another player in the circuit is an interneuron (light purple) that activates when experiencing emotionally charged events. Interneurons regulate by suppression of amygdala excitatory neurons (red colored neurons), making sure we don’t misinterpret stimuli such as acting like a reward is a threat, or a threat is a reward. The challenge of chronic stress in our generation is the tie to interneuron dysfunction (dark purple), contributing to hyperactive amygdala activity (represented in black) and increased risk for mental health disorders.