Guilty feelings.

Cognitive is physical.

Seriously?You doubt that your cognitive functions are the result of physical processes?

I can't believe you're even asking. http://www.vin.com/...archPB/Proceedings/PR05000/PR00311.htm Review : The Neurobiological Basis of Anxiety and Fear: Circuits, Mechanisms, and Neurochemical Interactions
The Neuroscientist, Vol. 4, No. 1, 35-44 (1998)What else could anxiety (or any emotion, for that matter) possibly be?

Mary L. Phillipsa, Wayne C. Drevetsb, Scott L. Rauchc and Richard Laned, Neurobiology of emotion perception I: the neural basis of normal emotion perceptionnext term, Biological Psychiatry, Volume 54, Issue 5, 1 September 2003, Pages 504-514Shin et al 2000. Activation of anterior paralimbic structures during guilt-related script-driven imagery. Biol Psychiatry 48 (2000), pp. 43-50. Hidehiko Takahashia, Noriaki Yahatac, Michihiko Koedad, Tetsuya Matsudae, Kunihiko Asaib and Yoshiro Okubo, Brain activation associated with evaluative processes of guilt and embarrassment: an fMRI study, NeuroImage, Volume 23, Issue 3, November 2004, Pages 967-974Edited by molbiogirl, : another paper

Larni, the structures of the brain don't just light up "all by themselves".Neurochemistry is responsible for all emotions, including guilt.And were I willing to dedicate another 1/2 hour to poking around scholar.google, I could tell you exactly which hormones are responsible for guilt.

No offense taken, Larni.I'm still confused, tho.You said "whereas" anxiet/guilt is hormonal. Cognition is too.Neurotransmitters are hormone/peptide/amino acid/monoamine: I guess I still don't know what distinction you are drawing.The only difference between guilt and cognition is the chemical used to signal the appropriate part of the brain.Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.Edited by molbiogirl, : sp

Do you mean something like this? These are self reported "guilt symptoms" from here:http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2007112513484...

I get queasy, yes. But that's not important. One person's experience is right next to useless.There are a bunch of papers in the literature that report similar findings, however.Guilt is very much like anxiety/embarrassment/shame. All share "physical" symptoms.ABE:Just to clarify, the physical "symptoms" of guilt are reported in the literature. As are those for anxiety/embarrassment/shame. There doesn't seem to be any question that guilt manifests itself "physically". Index of / http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/...act/109629662/ABSTRACTThis paper specifically mentions serotonergic and noradrenergic pathways as those responsible. Onset of action for duloxetine 60 mg once daily: double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, Journal of Psychiatric Research, Volume 39, Issue 2, March 2005, Pages 161-172 Role of Physical Symptoms in Diagnosis of Depression in the Elderly, Geriatrics and Aging, Volume 5, Number 8, October 2002, Pages 18-21.Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

It's in the quote, Larni. I didn't say they were. I said the symptoms for all 4 (anxiety/shame/embarrassment/guilt) are alike. No. The above quote show that guilt and shame have physiological symptoms.Granted guilt is not distinguished from shame. I didn't say that is was. Guilt is a part of depression.In my previous post, guilt is not separated from the rest of the feelings associated with depression, but I thought it important to include that study as it pinpoints the neurotransmitters that produce the pain.Guilt isn't often studied by neurobiologists. As Hidehiko noted in the quote I posted earlier: I didn't write that. Stahl et al did.And you ignored the rest of the quote. Good find!But, unfortunately, those findings are not consistent with others in the literature. Wright, F., O'Leary, J., Balkin, J., Shame, Guilt, Narcissism, and Depression: Correlates and Sex Differences, Psychoanal. Psychol., 6:217-230. Alesci, Salvatore, Major Depression Is Associated with Significant Diurnal Elevations in Plasma Interleukin-6 Levels, a Shift of Its Circadian Rhythm, and Loss of Physiological Complexity in Its Secretion: Clinical Implications. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 90(5):2522-2530, May 2005.Please note that guilt was measured separately from the other emotions. Kayhan Ghatavi et al, Defining guilt in depression:next term a comparison of subjects with major depression, chronic medical illness and healthy controls, Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 68, Issues 2-3, April 2002, Pages 307-315.Now. About the physiological symptoms of guilt. Facets of Emotion, Klaus R. Scherer.Please note that although the physiological symptoms of guilt are less prominent than those of fear, they do exist!

The pain is the symptom. The neurotransmitter is the trigger.To repeat: "It is now known that, in addition to sending projections throughout the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine cell bodies also send neuronal projections down the spinal cord."The pain is generated by the neurotransmitters in the spinal cord. Because the paper I mentioned specifically measured the "guilt component" of depression and showed it resulted in physiological symptoms. Should you wish to look at the study in the book I cited earlier, books.google the title: Facets of Emotion. On page 45, you will find a table with the results. The symptoms include: lump in throat, breathing, stomach, feeling cold, feeling warm, feeling hot, heartbeat, muscles tense, muscle relaxed, perspiring and other symptom.I can't copy and paste the table as books.google won't let me.I honestly have no idea why you are so resistant to the idea that guilt has physiological symptoms.

Jackpot.Survivor guilt (aka survivor syndrome).Scholar.google that puppy!Physiological symptoms out the wazoo.

Larni, you've lost me again. By way of analogy, here's what this sounds like to me:"The hardware of the genome runs the software i.e. the information generated by the base sequence."In other words, it makes no sense whatsoever to separate the information encoded by the genome from the genome. Nor does it make any sense to separate the information generated by the brain from the brain.Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

And I'm still waiting for you to look up the cite I've already provided.

btw.A person who is anxious may describe only psychological symptoms (inner feelings of tension, agitation, out-of-control) or physical symptoms (palpitations, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest, butterflies, sweating, an urge to go to the bathroom).Similarly, a person who is guilty may describe either psychological or physical symptoms.My guess is, were you to ask one of your patients who is plagued by guilt, "Do you have any physical symptoms?", the answer would be yes.

You'll get no argument from me there.