A Proposed Mechanism of Emotion

The work of Cannon,1Bard,2Penfield,3Ranson4and others has greatly advanced knowledge of the functions of the hypothalamus. In the light of these researches the connections of the hypothalamus to the medial wall of the cerebral cortex gain a new significance. The following discussion presents some anatomic, clinical and experimental data dealing with the hypothalamus, the gyrus cinguli, the hippocampus and their interconnections. Taken as a whole, this ensemble of structures is proposed as representing theoretically the anatomic basis of the emotions. It is generally recognized that in the brain of lower vertebrates the medial wall of the cerebral hemisphere is connected anatomically and integrated physiologically with the hypothalamus and that the lateral wall is similarly related to the dorsal thalamus (Herrick5). These fundamental relations are not only retained but greatly elaborated in the mammalian brain by the further development of the hippocampal formation