APA Dictionary of Psychology

a discipline that addresses the brain mechanisms underlying emotions. In seeking to understand the particular roles of major subcortical and cortical structures in the elicitation, experience, and regulation of emotion, affective neuroscience provides an important framework for understanding the neural processes that underlie psychopathology, particularly the mood and substance-related disorders. Also called social affective neuroscience. [term coined by Estonian-born U.S. physiological psychologist Jaak Panksepp (1943–  )]