Emotions and heart openers and the brain...oh my!

So my favorite podcast EVER is Radio Lab on WYNC...I get a little flat hand clappy every time I hear  one (this is the program that I learned about the link between the domestication of cats and the sharp rise in schizophrenia in western society...Brilliant!!!!!!). If you have been in my class this week you have heard me talk about the fascinating story I  heard about the link of emotions and  physical response...theorizing that the physical response (racing heart, pupil dialation,  rise in blood pressure etc...) is what triggers the emotional response in the brain (ie, the translation of the physical manifestation of these responses). That begs the question to be asked "then what happens to the people who lose the ability to feel their body?" This question along with many others is answered in this article from the NY Times.....This made me think- if people who lose  all sense of feeling in their bodies suffer a profound dulling of the senses, to what extent of "emotional numbness" do those of us who are out of touch with  our bodies experience? It make sense why many people have profound emotional repsonses on their mats when they open up to the sensations of the body in hip openers and backbends.  Ah yoga- you never cease to rock my existence!