The orchestration of conscious experience by subcortical structures.
Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society May 1, 2010 Newton Ressler
Conscious emotional feelings cannot be explained solely by brain circuits or activations representing environmental stimuli. A model proposes that the limbic system responds to sensory inputs based on their association with built-in rewards or punishments. It activates the autonomic nervous system to prepare the body to acquire a reward or avoid a punishment, and also activates the prefrontal cortex (PFC). PFC activations become temporally correlated with autonomic activations and feedback, so they become identified with the autonomic attempts to acquire a reward or avoid a punishment. The PFC circuit thus acquires a valence, which along with arousal in a given context, underlies conscious emotional feelings. The model is related to attention, unified percept formation, value-based and cognitive responses, and the stream of consciousness.