Thanks to technological advances, neuroscientists can now collect mouth-watering amounts of data, simultaneously recording the activity of hundreds of neurons in real-time. But what's the use of having this "big neuro data" if we can't make sense of it?

Today, the general view about the role emotions play in our lives has radically evolved, and the importance of emotions throughout the animal kingdom has finally been recognised. Charles Darwin already intuited 150 years ago when he wrote that emotions are “a universal means of communication” across the animal kingdom. As for us humans, we now know that emotions literally shape every aspect of our lives, including things as unique to our species as rationality and morality.

A woman who’s just had one of her breasts entirely removed, which forever leaves her with a huge scar across half of her chest, might be very satisfied with the result. If this was her only option, what obviously most matters to her is to be rid of the disease. But for another, who has submitted to a more advanced breast surgery – that is equally successful in clinical terms, but also more conservative and reconstructive – might on the other hand find her new look highly unsatisfactory in spite of the aesthetic results of the surgery being flawless.