A CONVERSATION WITH JOSEPH LEDOUX

Taking a Clinical Look at Human Emotions
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

On a recent balmy evening, Dr. Joseph LeDoux, a professor of neuroscience at New York University, strode to the stage of the Cornelia Street
Cafe in Greenwich Village and read from his latest book, "The Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are."

Astonishingly, the audience - graduate students, publishing executives and scientists - greeted Dr. LeDoux's performance with enthusiasm usually reserved for rock stars.

In the world of the brain sciences, Dr. LeDoux, 52, is a star of
high wattage. Through his research and writings, he has been a major force in
changing approaches to human brain research. Previously, brain studies tended
to bypass phenomena that are difficult to measure, like emotions and the
unconscious. Dr. LeDoux, in his laboratory, began finding ways to study how the
brain processes emotions.

Rather than treat emotion as an experience, he looked at it as a
process. And in doing this, he uncovered a path into the territory that is the
human mind. "I'm studying the quantifiable aspects of the mind," Dr. LeDoux
said over coffee on a morning not long after his cafe performance. "I'm saying,
`Here's how you can quantify certain aspects of it and make some progress.' "

Q. In "The Synaptic Self," you say, "We are our synapses." Why do
you say that the key to humanness is to be found in the microscopic spaces
between two nerve cells?
A. Synapses are the spaces between brain cells. But more
importantly, they are the channels of communication between cells that make
possible all brain functions, including perception, memory, emotion and
thinking.