They were also less likely to give the expected response in the emotional processing test.

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Decreased Fos in the amygdala, the brain's emotional processing center, suggests the olfactory signals suppressed amygdala activation, and possibly fear, researchers said.

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In a 2009 study, scientists there used fMRI (Functional MRI) imaging to measure brain activity in regions of emotional processing in the brain before and after injecting Botox to suppress smiling muscles.

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When shown a range of facial expressions, children as young as 7 months cast the longest gaze on the fearful face, similar to adult behavior, which scientists say signals an early sign of emotional processing.

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Bradford Dickerson, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues have shown in studies that the size of certain parts of the brain important to emotional processing is associated with how many friends we have.

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When we've asked James to think about words which have good and less palatable tastes to him, we see many parts of the brain lighting up, including areas associated with taste, emotional processing and mental imagery, he says.

BBC: News

Researchers believe the cortical thinning causes depression by interfering with the processing of emotional stimuli, he said.

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They're critical to processing certain emotional reactions, particularly fear.

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What this new, evidence based, understanding of the unconscious mind tells us Leonard Mlodinow argues is that there's no hidden meaning or emotional value attached to the subliminal processing that goes on in the brain.

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