emotion & emotion regulation lesson 11 (Neuro exam 2)

Panksepp's Theory

Affective attack (fear/anger;rage) vs predatory attack (seeking, bas, pleasure, reward) have different neural signatures -electrical stimulation -ventrolateral and medial (rage) vs dorsolateral hypothalamus (predatory) -dorsal PAG (rage) vs ventral PAG (predatory) affective attack and fear circuits -amygdala, PFC, hippocampus predatory attack and reward circuits (stopped by dopamine blocker) -VT , NAS, PFC and hippocampus

Papez circuit

A limbic-based circuit that was once thought to constitute a largely undifferentiated "emotional" brain -emotional expression is controlled by several interconnected neclei and tracts that ring the thalamus papez 1937- rabies virus progressed from hippocampus notice no amygdala (Anterior nucleus, septal nuclei, hypothalamus, mammilary body, cingulate cortex, fornix, mammillothalamic tract, hippocampal formation

substantial research has shown that the experience of social rejection or exclusion

("social pain") is processed by some of the same neural regions that process physical pain

when participants looked through videos of disapproving facial expressions, they showed greater activation in the Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, but not in other limbic areas (such as the amygdala)

***True False

Functional imaging studies in which ppl experience emotions or imagine emotions or watch others experience emotion have highlighted three points

-brain activity associated with each human emotion is diffuse (there is no center for each emotion) -there is virtually always activity in motor and sensory cortices when a person experiences an emotion or empathizes with a person experiencing an emotion -similar patterns of brain activity tend to be recorded when a person experiences an emotion, imagines that emotion, or sees somebody else experience that emotion

partly bc medial PFC is a huge area

-need to be more specific

micro-electrodes to record from 267 neurons in the ACC of 4 patients prior to surgery

-patients viewed photographs with emotional content -56 neurons responded most strongly and consistently to negative emotion content -shows that not all neurons "do" the same thing

unfair competition ex the tailor aggression task

-play against a confederate -person who pushes the button slower gets punished with a really horrible noise -confederate decides how long and how loud -rigged so that "confederate" wins first and starts with a really loud and long noise

rejection-sensitive individuals viewing videos of individuals making disapproving facial expressions

-potential cue for social rejection -was associates with greater activity in the DACC but not other limbic areas, such as amygdala DACC may be specifically responsive to cues of rejection

Ekman's theory

1. original facial expressions of emotion rarely occur in pure form (they are ideals with many subtle variations) 2. other primary emotions may exist -basic emotions vs social emotions 3. body cues, not just facial expressions, play a major role in expressions of emotion 4. ekman's six primary facial expressions may not be as universal as originally believed -seem to be some distinct differences in terms of both the expressions and recognition of facial expressions between western caucasian and east asian individuals

Cannon-Bard theory vs James-Lang

C&B's theory viewed emotional experience to be totally independent of feedback from the body, while J&L's theory viewed emotional experience to depend entirely on feedback from autonomic & somatic NS both theories have been shown to be inaccurate humans who have a broken neck (minimal if any feedback from ANS or SNS) are still able to feel emotions -but also evidence autonomic & somatic responses to emotional stimuli can influence emotional experiences

Self-reports of pain unpleasantness correlates with

DACC activity and insula activity

attachment-related distress vocalizations in animals are related to

DACC and lesions in DACC eliminate these -however, not found for anterior insula

the sensory component of physical pain codes for the unpleasant aspects of pain

True ****False

Kluver-Bucy syndrome

a condition, brought about by bilateral amygdala damage, that is characterized by dramatic emotional changes including reduction in fear and anxiety Kluver and Bucy (1939) observed a syndrome in monkeys whose anterior temporal lobes had been removed Following symptoms- the consumption of almost anything that is edible, increased sexual activity often directed at inappropriate objects, a tendency to repeatedly investigate familiar objects, a tendency to investigate objects with the mouth, and a lack of fear -primary cause seemed to be damage of the amygdala -found in several species, including humans

what over the counter drug has shown to reduce hurt feelings across long-term studies?

a. tylenol b.nyquil c.tums d.oxycontin

Which Brain region is NOT part of the limbic system

a.globus pallidus b. cingulate cortex c. fornix d. mammillary bodies

it is hypothesized that severe stress ex. romanian orphanages leads to

abnormal development of limbic regions and connections

Lateral nucleus of the amygdala seems to be critically involved in the

acquisition, storage ad expression of conditioned fear -both the PFC and hippocampus project to the lateral nucleus of the amygdala -PFC is thought to have a suppressing function -hippocampus is thought to interact with the amygdala to mediate learning about the context of fear-related events

Lateral nucleus is critically involved in the

acquisition, storage, and expression of conditioned fear

all brain areas activated by emotional stimuli are also

activated during other psychological processes

(Sham rage) 1929- Bard discovered that cats whose cortex had been removed would respond

aggressively to even the slightest provocation Ex. after a light touch (arch backs, erect hair, hiss, and expose teeth)

antidepressants (SSRI, anxiety and depression)

also alleviate physical pain

affective component of pain is processed by the

anterior cingulate cortex (mainly dorsal) and insula (mainly anterior)

James-Lang theory of emotion

argued that the autonomic activity (ex. increased heart rate) and behavior (ex. running away) that are triggered by the emotional event (seeing a snake) produce the feeling of emotion The theory that emotional feelings result when an individual becomes aware of the physiological response to an emotion-provoking stimulus (for example, feeling fear because of trembling). that different emotional stimuli induce diff patters of ANS activity, which produces the feeling of emotion

Darwin's theory of the evolution of emotion

belief that expressions of emotions evolved from behaviors that indicate what an animal is likely to do next -if signal provided by such behaviors benefitted the animal that displays them, they would evolve in ways that enhanced their communicative function -opposite messages are often signaled by opposite movements & postures ex. aggressive vs submissive dog) once enemies began to recognize behaviors (including facial expressions) as signals of impending aggression, a survival advantage was had by attackers that could communicate their aggression effectively and intimidate their victims without actually fighting

Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis

believed that when individuals make decisions, they must assess the incentive value of the choices available to them, but cognitive & emotional Good decision-making requires input from emotions and feelings

though considerable support for overlap between social and physical pain,

brain regions do not overlap completely

some evidence that conditions, such as tumors and electrical stimulation,

can evoke the expression of rage-like behavior in humans

chronic pain patients undergone cingulotomy (lesioned)

can feel and localize pain but pain no longer bothers them similar for insula lesions

Most functional imaging methods, ex. fMRI

cannot differentiate from which nucleus activation is coming -amygdala neuroimagining results are different to interpret

emotional situations produce widespread increases in

cerebral activity, not just in the amygdalae and PFC

Sham rage can be elicited in cats whose

cerebral hemispheres were removed down to, but not including the hypothalamus

somatic marker hypothesis

cognitive mechanisms get overloaded requiring individuals to use-emotion-related changes in body and brain states -physiological changes- ex. heart rate, occur in the body (somatic markers) and are relayed in the brain where they are transformed into an emotion that tells the individual something about the stimulus

the theory that states that a subjective experience of emotion is triggered by the autonomic and somatic nervous system responses is

common sense theory james-lange theory cannon-barn theory ***modern biopsychological theory

Ekman and colleagues (1960s) analyzed hundreds of films and photographs of people experiencing various "real emotions"

concluded there were 6 primary emotions surprise, anger, sadness, disgust, fear and happiness ppl of diff cultures make similar facial expressions in similar situations there is some evidence that our facial expressions can actually make us feel better-facial feedback hypothesis

individuals with lower levels of social support show higher levels of

cortisol and greater DACC activity in responses to social exclusion DACC ACTIVATION MEDIATED SOCIAL SUPPORT- CORTISOL RELATIONSHIP

Bard concluded that the hypothalamus was

critical to the expression of aggressive responses and that the cortex was required to inhibit and direct these aggressive responses

the same emotional stimuli often activate

different areas in different people- individual differences

Frontal lobe damage, psychopathy, and drug abusers show

disadvantages responses, low levels of VMPFC activation, & minimal somatic markers---do not seem to learn from risky/bad choices

DACC mediated RVPFC-

distress relationship -RVPFC may relate to lower levels of social distress by downregulating the activity of the DACC

DACC and anterior insula are both involved in the

distressing experience of social exclusion in humans

Bottom up processing

emotion elicited by external- stimulus oriented -

the amygdale appear to play a role in the performance of any task with an

emotional component, whether positive or negative (not just fear)

Amygdala adds

emotional salience or meaningfulness to events

Cannon-Bard Theory

emotional stimuli have 2 independent excitatory effects emotional stimuli excite both the feeling of emotion in the brain and the expression of emotion in the automatic and somatic nervous systems -view emotional experience & expression as a parallel processes that have no direct causal relation -Suggest that all emotional stimuli produce the same general pattern of sympathetic activation, which prepares the organism for action

top down processing

emotions elicited by internal events (ex. thoughts, memories) -amygdala -PFC

Joseph LeDoux theory- fear conditioning

fear conditioning is the establishment of fear in response to a previously neutral stimulus by presenting it (usually repeatedly) with an aversive stimulus

cyberball

first round included, second round excluded greater self-reported social pain following CB was associated with greater activity in DACC -when excluded (compared to included) showed increased activity in both DACC and anterior insula

severely deprived children show indiscriminately

friendly behavior (lack of fear) and also show decreased amygdala activation

Video- slide 3/65

frontal lobe can tell amygdala to calm down - tell amyg it is just a poster (not the real KISS) or almost get in car wreck-increasing heart rate, legs shaky- talk yourself down researcher- P's in MRI showed them lots of shapes- said she would shock them if they saw a blue square (saw blue square but didn't recieve shock) amygdala still responded

Damasio proposed that emotional processes

guide or bias our behavior when making decision

physical pain/social pain

heat stimulus delivered to forearm, say when painful after playing CB, how much social distress they felt p. who were more sensitive to physical pain were also more socially distressed by social exclusion remained significant after controlling for neuroticism (not due to tendency to report higher levels of negative experience)

Sham rage has been elicited in various animals by implanting & activating electrodes in various brain regions, including the

hypothalamus, amygdala, and the periaqueductal graym(PAG), and that the effects were less severe when norepinephrine was inhibited (haloperidol)

Limbic system

includes hippocampus, amygdala, fornix, mammillary body, septal nuclei, parahippocampal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, dentate gyrus, and olfactory bulb more recently considered fairly obsolete

next section focus on overlap using two approaches

individual differences hypothesis- sensitivity to one kind of pain should relate to sensitivity to other manipulation hypothesis- factors that increase or decrease one kind of pain should affect the other

no brain structure has been

invariable linked to a particular emotion

sensory

location, intensity, duration of pain

Medial PFC hypothesized to be involved in a number of functions

monitor the difference between outcome and expectancy -monitor for conflict between action strategies -to encode stimulus value over time -to predict the likelihood of error (prediction error-dopamine) -to mediate the conscious awareness of emotional stimuli -to mediate social decision making

individuals with the variant g allele of mu-opioid receptor tend to experience

more physical pain and need more morphine to deal with the pain

the medial portions of the prefrontal cortex (OFC and ACC) are the sites of emotion-cognition interaction that have received the

most attention, including emotion suppression or reappraisial

contextual fear conditioning

occurs when an environment or context in which fear-inducing stimuli are encountered can come to elicit fear without the presence of the fear-inducing stimuli

emotion and cognition may be different components

of the same system

during exclusion (vs. inclusion) showed activity in right ventral prefrontal cortex,

often associated with regulation of pain and negative affective experiences

subtypes of aggression

over/covert overt/relational impulsive/premeditated affective/predatory hostile/instrumental reactive/proactive

thus various types of socially painful experiences may activate

pain-related neural regions (not just rejection)

suppression paradigms

participants are directed to inhibit their emotional reactions to unpleasant films or pictures

reappraisal paradigms

participants are instructed to reinterpret a picture to change their emotional reaction to it

other regions that play a role in pain processing, ex

periaqueductal gray (PAG) also seem to be involved in attachment-related distress vocalizations

polymorphism in the mu-opiod receptor gene is associated with

physical pain sensitivity

assessed daily (10 days) via a palmpilot that administered relevant questions throughout the day

played CB individuals who reported feeling more socially rejected or disconnected in their real-world social interactions showed greater activity in the DACC and PAG during exclusion

gambling task

ppl with ventromedial damage, anti social personality disorder, don-t understand the big loss (perceive it)

which area is critically involved in the acquisition storage, and expression of conditioned fear?

prefrontal cortex central nucleus of the amygdala ***lateral nucleus of the amygdala hippocamus

CE- central nucleus

projects to regions of the hypothalamus, midbrain, pons and medulla that are responsible for the expression of the various components of emotional responses

Phineas Gage

provide evidence that the prefrontal cortex, especially the VMPFC is involved in making decisions based on previous mistakes

fear conditioning ex.

rat hears tone (CS) then receives mild electric shock (US) which leads to fear (UR) -after several parings, the CS (tone) elicits fear (CR)

sound signals from the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus

reach the amygdala directly, or indirectly via the auditory cortex amygdala assesses the emotional significance of the sound on the basis of previous encounters with it then activates the appropriate response circuits

Central nucleus (CE)

receives info from the basal and lateral nuclei and sends projections to a wide variety of regions in the brain; involved in emotional responses

lateral nucleus (LA)

receives sensory information from the neocortex, thalamus and hippocampus and sends projections to the basal and central nucleus of the amygdala

panksepp and others have found that low, non-sedative doses of morphine

reduce distress vocalizations made by non-human infants when separated from their mothers (monkeys, dogs, guinea pigs, rats, and chickens) -E suggests that one factor might be contributing to opiate abuse is social isolation -greater opiate consumption among animals who are separated from companions

Basal nucleus (B)

send information to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the Central nucleus

physical pain experience can be subdivided into

sensory and affective components

social and physical pain rely on

shared neurochemistry

Iowa gambling task

shows deficits in emotional processing and decision-making

opiates and antidepressants seem to reduce

social and physical pain

greater activity in DACC reported greater levels of

social distress ("I felt meaningless")

hippocampus plays a key role in memory for

spatial location -bilateral hippocampal lesions block the subsequent development of a fear response to context without blocking the development of a fear response to the explicit conditional stimulus (tone)

using smell to induce emotion

stress condition was associated with heightened LPP (late positive potential) across all facial expressions, relative to control, the LPP was increased for both ambiguous and neutral faces in the stress condition, these results suggest that stress sweat may impact electrocortical activity associated with attention to salient environmental cues, potentially increasing attentiveness to otherwise inconspicuous stimuli

Brain stem (sham rage) (PAG)

take cortex off cats- can trigger rage

amygdala seems to play a role in evaluating

the emotional significance of situations

autonomic nervous system

the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms. ex. fight or flight rest and digrest

E. argues that evolutionarily "social pain" piggy backed onto

the physical pain system as an adaption to increase survival

physical pain is adaption

to avoid things

greater RVPFC was associated with lower levels of self-reported social distress in response

to social exclusion and reduced activity in the DACC

how can we induce emotion so we can study it?

unfair competition- tailor aggression task removal of desired object present emotional faces (problematic-when u c angry face, do you feel angry?) arousing pictures milk electric shock pheromones-presented ppl with stress sweat and sweaty sweat

affective

unpleasantness of pain (amount of suffering)

amygdala is thought to control defensive behavior

via outputs from the central nucleus of the amygdala

viewing pictures of deceased first-degree relatives showed greater activity in DACC and anterior insula compared to

viewing pictures of a stranger

J&L Emotion-inducing sensory are received and interpreted by the cortex which triggers changes in the

visceral organs via ANS (sympathetic & parasympatheic NS) skeletal muscles via the somatic nervous system (sensory afferents and motor efferents)

humans are born relatively immature

without the capacity to feed or fend for self -thus need "others" to care for them to survive