7 - cognitive neuroscience: emotions and memory Flashcards
what is emotion?
- a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes
- a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behaviour
why do we have emotions?
- keep us safe
- important for learning adaptive behaviour
- communication device
what are the 5 components of an emotional system? which are only in more developed animals?
- expression changes
- physiological arousal
- behaviour
and in more developed animals:
- subjective affect (can put a label on what we feel)
- cognitive appraisal (eg. how did i get into this situation, was the fear appropriate)
what 5 areas of the brain are important in emotions?
- ventromedial frontal lobe
- amygdala
- visual cortex
- thalamus
- cingulate gyrus
lesions where in the brain do not abolish fear conditioning?
in cerebrum
lesions where in the brain abolish fear conditioning completely?
from the amygdala down
describe the auditory pathway
- auditory nerve
- cochlear nucleus
- lateral lemniscus
- inferior colliculus
- medial geniculate nucleus
- auditory cortex
what is the most important area for fear conditioning?
central nucleus of the amygdala
where does the central nucleus of the amygdala project?
projects to hypothalamus, midbrain, pons and medulla
what are the effects of bilateral amygdala lesions in animals?
Kluver-Bucy syndrome :
- no fear
- inappropriate approach behaviour
- excess curiosity
what are the effects of bilateral amygdala lesions in humans?
bilateral amygdala lesions are RARE
- curiosity overcoming fear
- impaired recognition of emotional expressions
- impaired recognition of fear from movie stills
effects generalise to other emotions, partially negative emotions
what region of brain is involved in guilt?
ventromedial prefrontal regions
what region of brain is involved in empathy?
median frontal cortex
what can cause emotional impairments?
- focal brain damage (relatively rare)
- developmental disorders (eg. autism)
- psychiatry : enhanced response to fear in anxiety, enhanced response to -ve emotions in depression, lack of sympathetic/empathetic responses in personality disorder, emotional dysregualtin in bipolar disorder/ psychosis
- dementia (eg. fronto-temporal dementia)
- other neurological disorders (pathophysiology and/or medication)
what can emotional implications be due to?
in progressive neurodegenerative disorders, can be:
- psychological consequence of long term condition
- direct effect of pathology (eg. degeneration of DA system in PD)
- effect of psychoactive medication (eg. drugs that target monoamines will influence emotion)
what is selegiline?
an MAO-I antidepressant
what are the different types of memory?
- short-term
- long-term
- autobiographical
- semantic (general knowledge)
- sensory
- spatial
- procedural
etc
what are the different component processes of memory?
encoding, storage, retrieval
describe the taxonomy of memory
describe STM
- memory for “nonsense syllables”
- memory for number strings
- digit span (remembering phone numbers)
- 7 (+/- 2)
primacy effect vs recency effect
- only see recency effect if recall is tested straight away
- primary effect - LTM
- after a delay, maintain primacy effect but lose recency effect
describe a short term memory impairment due to a left occipito-parietal lesion
- digit span of 2
- no recency effect in free recall
- normal learning
- no amnesia
describe a long term memory impairment due to a medial temporal lobectomy (patient HM)
- damage to hippocampus and surrounding cortex
- personality and IQ intact
- massive anterograde amnesia = couldn’t form new memories
- moderate retrograde amnesia = for memories 1-3 years pre-op
- normal digit span
- could not learn new facts
- could acquire new skills, but in absence of explicit memory of learning them
what type of memory did HM still acquire?
long term implicit
what type of memory is the hippocampus important for?
declarative memory
- episodic memory
- semantic memory
what type of memory is the prefrontal cortex important for?
working memory
what type of memory is the striatum important for?
procedural memory
what type of memory is the cerebral cortex important for?
- perceptual memory
- semantic memory
- priming
what type of memory is the amygdala important for?
emotional memory
what type of memory is the cerebellum important for?
conditioned timing
what can cause memory impairment?
- amnesia due to brain damage/injury
- alzheimer’s disease
- other dementias
- progressive neurological conditions eg. PDs
- psychiatric problems
which of the following is likely to be true about patient with a specific acquired deficit in STM?
- cannot recall facts
- cannot remember childhood events
- cannot learn new skills
- impaired digit span
- normal recency effect
impaired digit span
which of the following is likely to be true about a patient with a specific acquired deficit in LTM?
- cannot remember childhood events
- no recency effect
- impaired digit span
- cannot learn new skills
- cannot learn new facts
cannot learn new facts
