Richard Davidson Probes the Roots of Emotions In the Brain

From WUWM (Milwaukee Public Radio), this is a cool interview with Dr. Richard Davidson, author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them. Davidson has been a member of the Dalai Lama's Mind and Life Institute Board of Directors since 1991, replacing Mind and Life founder, Francisco Varela, following his death.

In addition, Davidson is the Director of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, and is currently the William James Professor and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. at Madison. You can find many of his more than 250 publications at this page.

Madison Scientist Probes the Roots of Emotions In the Brain

Mitch Teich

Richard Davidson is the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at UW Madison.

LAKE EFFECT | JAN 1, 2013

When Richard Davidson first began his doctoral work more than 30 years ago, the disciplines of neuroscience and psychology didn't play well together. The idea that emotions were brain activity that could actually be measured and quantified in a laboratory setting was dismissed by most researchers. But Davidson persevered and is today the foremost expert on the science of emotions.

He’s a scientist at UW-Madison, and his recent book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain, explores how our emotions are as much a part of our brain activity as its other functions, like cognition.

We reached Davidson in Madison in March and he explained to Lake Effect's Bonnie North why the topic of emotions captured his professional interest so early in his career.

Davidson has been in Madison since 1984, and he is currently the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, and Founder and Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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