Clinical Affective Neuroscience

Affective neuroscience is a promising young field in neuroscience for understanding the basis of many types of psychopathology. It describes the scientific investigation of the neural basis of affect, emotion, and feelings. These phenomena arise from mental processes that are not always directly observable, which complicates discovering their neural basis. Nevertheless, as it has done for other inferred processes, such as memory and language, neuroscience should transform our emotion-based patient formulations and lead to novel, targeted therapeutics for emotional issues. In this Translations article, we aim to provide a brief introduction to affective neuroscience for clinicians, beginning with defining key terms and then reviewing clinical applications.