Check out a provocative post by Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps on her Psychology Today blog.

But first I would like to talk a little about emotions. My source is Antonio Demasio’s Looking for Spinoza.  Our brains are continuously mapping our body-state and mind-state.  Our body-maps contains information about which muscles are tensed, which are relaxed.  Is our heart beating fast or slow?  How about inhalation, exhalation–normal speed, rhythm?  Is there difficulty breathing?  How about our digestive system?  Is it empty?  Is food rotting in our stomach?  And how about blood chemistry?  Do we have the right mix of chemicals, is adrenalin coursing through our body?  Etc.  The combined, integrated perception of the body-maps is a feeling.

(You would notice that feeling is after the emotion. Take, for example, fear. Fear pushes adrenalin throughout our body, getting reflected in our body-map, and our feeling of fear is partially the feeling of that adrenaline.)

But the feeling, according to Demasio, isn’t merely a William James physical, perception, thing. There is a mind-state as well.  Your accompanying thoughts to emotional stimulation.  What memories are recalled?  What associations are made? These are from the mind-state.

The feeling is that converged and integrated perception of those mind and body maps.  (Feeling is a perception like seeing or hearing is a perception.)

So what does that got to do with Botox?

… foreheads were injected with Botox; thus deactivating a pair of muscles that cause brow-wrinkling frowns. One result? The subjects were slower to understand sad and angry written statements. A vital element in their emotion-recognition feedback loop had been removed, impairing their ability to experience their emotions as fully as they had before the injections.

Thanks to Leslie, we have that question to ask.

Here is a good video of Damasio lecturing on emotion at University of Washington.