Aug 25, 2026 · 1 hr · 13 segments
Affective neuroscience in psychiatry may offer a better way to understand patients who do not fit neatly into DSM categories. Dr. White joins us to explain Jaak Panksepp’s seven primary emotional…
Greg MalzbergHostUh, and I think the, the-- how I would start that is what if I were to tell you that there's, you know, sixty years of, of bench neuroscience in, in multiple mammals, uh, th- in every animal that's been studied, it, it all points to the same thing, that there are conserved homologous circuits responsible for affective impulses.
Uh, and this is through direct stimulation, lesion studies, neurochemical studies, uh, and that this is well replicated, and that this seems to be responsible for motivating emotional behavior, and that, uh, psychiatry hasn't really thought about it or incorporated this at all into how we think about pathology.
And do you believe even just a superficial understanding of this can help people understand and treat patients?
I think even, e- having a better understanding of emotional experiences and kind of what's, what's driving us and, you know, the idea that this is something that's in every mammal that's been studied and is gonna magically not be in, in humans.
You know, these are-- the- these systems are deeply subcortical, so, you know, brain stem, midbrain, and these studies are very difficult to do in humans.
You know, you-- we cannot just go, uh, you know, lopping into human brain stems and do these kinds of experiments.
And so the work was, was foundationally done in animals, and so it didn't get really any attention clinically.
Uh, but the more you, you use, you know, careful, you know, correlations in, in human studies where you find it and build on that, uh, the, the more compelling it, it becomes.
And yeah, I would say how can anyone who's working with patients not want a better understanding of what's moving them, of, of the emotion-- what's building those emotional experiences? What's responsible for a lot of the, the big arousals, the big, big feelings that we have?
And I'll guess-- I'll give a little bit of disclaimer in terms of, uh, my familiarity with this stuff.
I, I first came across Jaak Panksepp, who I think you'll get into in a second, who's the, the f- the forefather of, of affective neuroscience.
I came through his work through Nancy McWilliams because she was talking about the primary emotions.
And I was like, "Oh, I, I should probably..." For-- as a psychiatrist, you'd think I know a little bit more about emotions.
So I, I bought his book, and I was like blown away of like, wait, we, we pretend that biological psychiatry is taking over, and here is this like tome of all the biological correlates that we know about.
Why do the therapists know more about the biology than psychiatrists who are biological? It just didn't make any sense.
It, you know, it was actually, uh, Greg, one of your videos I saw a- as a resident that, that first led me to discover, uh, Jaak Panksepp's work, and I had the same reaction.
I was like: How have I never heard of this through all of medical school and, and all of residency, uh, so far? And, uh, I, you know, I think there's, there's a bit of an answer.
Uh, when, when DSM-III was, was coming out in, in the '80s, there was a lot of concern.
Uh, and I think the, the-- how I would start that is what if I were to tell you that there's, you know, sixty years of, of bench neuroscience in, in multiple mammals, uh, th- in every animal that's been studied, it, it all points to the same thing, that there are conserved homologous circuits responsible for affective impulses.
Uh, and this is through direct stimulation, lesion studies, neurochemical studies, uh, and that this is well replicated, and that this seems to be responsible for motivating emotional behavior, and that, uh, psychiatry hasn't really thought about it or incorporated this at all into how we think about pathology.
And do you believe even just a superficial understanding of this can help people understand and treat patients?
I think even, e- having a better understanding of emotional experiences and kind of what's, what's driving us and, you know, the idea that this is something that's in every mammal that's been studied and is gonna magically not be in, in humans.
You know, these are-- the- these systems are deeply subcortical, so, you know, brain stem, midbrain, and these studies are very difficult to do in humans.
You know, you-- we cannot just go, uh, you know, lopping into human brain stems and do these kinds of experiments.
And so the work was, was foundationally done in animals, and so it didn't get really any attention clinically.
Uh, but the more you, you use, you know, careful, you know, correlations in, in human studies where you find it and build on that, uh, the, the more compelling it, it becomes.
And yeah, I would say how can anyone who's working with patients not want a better understanding of what's moving them, of, of the emotion-- what's building those emotional experiences? What's responsible for a lot of the, the big arousals, the big, big feelings that we have?
And I'll guess-- I'll give a little bit of disclaimer in terms of, uh, my familiarity with this stuff.
I, I first came across Jaak Panksepp, who I think you'll get into in a second, who's the, the f- the forefather of, of affective neuroscience.
I came through his work through Nancy McWilliams because she was talking about the primary emotions.
And I was like, "Oh, I, I should probably..." For-- as a psychiatrist, you'd think I know a little bit more about emotions.
So I, I bought his book, and I was like blown away of like, wait, we, we pretend that biological psychiatry is taking over, and here is this like tome of all the biological correlates that we know about.
Why do the therapists know more about the biology than psychiatrists who are biological? It just didn't make any sense.
It, you know, it was actually, uh, Greg, one of your videos I saw a- as a resident that, that first led me to discover, uh, Jaak Panksepp's work, and I had the same reaction.
I was like: How have I never heard of this through all of medical school and, and all of residency, uh, so far? And, uh, I, you know, I think there's, there's a bit of an answer.
Uh, when, when DSM-III was, was coming out in, in the '80s, there was a lot of concern.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
