Brain-emotion map shows anger sits close to fear, while love forms a warmth cluster
Researchers used AI to analyze brain MRI data while participants watched movie clips, creating an artificial 'mental map' that places emotions along axes of pleasantness and bodily response. The study found clear groupings, with anger, disgust, and guilt clustering near fear, and happiness, satisfaction, and warmth clustering separately, helping explain why anger can feel similar to fear and informing future mental-health research.