Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Aug 10:1:e9.
doi: 10.1017/pen.2018.5. eCollection 2018.

A Tribute to Jaak Panksepp (1943-2017)

Kenneth L Davis  1 , Christian Montag  2   3
Affiliations

A Tribute to Jaak Panksepp (1943-2017)

Kenneth L Davis et al. Personal Neurosci. .

Abstract

This article gives a short overview on the life and achievements of Jaak Panksepp. Jaak Panksepp dedicated his life to the study of mammalian emotions. By means of electrical stimulation of the brain and psychopharmacological challenges he carved out seven primary emotional systems being highly conserved across different species of mammals including homo sapiens. The primary emotional systems are called SEEKING, CARE, LUST, PLAY (positive emotions), and FEAR, RAGE, SADNESS (negative emotions). While his early career was characterized by the direct study of these primary emotions in mammals, in his late career he invested more and more time in applying his knowledge to different fields of psychology including personality neuroscience and psychiatry.

Keywords: Animal (non-human) models; Emotion; Jaak Panksepp; Psychopathology (general); affective neuroscience; primary emotional systems.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest. The authors have nothing to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Jaak Panksepp dedicated his professional career to the study of mammalian emotions (picture taken by Henry Moore Jr., CVM/BCU, Washington State University).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abella V., Panksepp J., Manga D., Bárcena C. Iglesias J. A. (2011). Spanish validation of the affective neuroscience personality scales. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 14, 926–935. 10.5209/rev_SJOP.2011.v14.n2.38. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alcaro A., Carta S. Panksepp J. (2017). The affective core of the self: A neuro-archetypical perspective on the foundations of human (and animal) subjectivity. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1424 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01424. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Davis K. L., Gurski J. C. Scott J. P. (1977). Interaction of separation distress with fear in infant dogs. Developmental Psychobiology, 10, 203–212. 10.1002/dev.420100304. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Davis K. L. Panksepp J. (2011). The brain’s emotional foundations of human personality and the affective neuroscience personality scales. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1946–1958. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.04.004. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Davis K. L., Panksepp J. Normansell L. (2003). The affective neuroscience personality scales: Normative data and implications. Neuropsychoanalysis, 5, 57–69. 10.1080/15294145.2003.10773410. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources