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ps2023 - thinking, emotion & consciousness > brain mechanisms of emotion > Flashcards

brain mechanisms of emotion Flashcards

1
Q

what was the case study S.M?

A
  • female, mid-20s
  • started having seizures
  • sent to CT scan
  • amygdala impaired
  • tissue has died in amygdala
  • had specific condition
  • IQ normal
  • no perceptual or motor problems
    Impaired in recognising fearful facial expressions
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2
Q

what were the overall conclusions from S.M regarding amygdala and her impairments?

A
  • amygdala plays role in recognising facial expressions of fear
  • no impairment in the concept of fear
  • no impairment in labelling emotional prosody incl. fear (e.g., a fearful voice/speech sounds)
  • selective impairment in recognition of one emotion with spared recognition of other emotions suggests distributed nature of emotion processing in the brain
  • not one brain region that processes emotions
  • emotion recognition is distributed across the brain
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3
Q

history of origin of limbic system?

A
  • Papez (1937) proposed network of regions involved in emotion processing (later called Papez circuit)
  • MacLean (1949/52) extended this network to include amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex and portions of the basal ganglia, and popularised the term ‘limbic system’
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4
Q

why is it called the limbic system?

A
  • limbic because all structures are found in area in middle of brain
  • area forms rim around corpus callosum
  • “lim” means “rim” in Latin
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5
Q

what was MacLean’s limbic system theory?

A
  • some structures highlighted by him are important in emotion processing but most not
  • one network that was responsible for processing all emotions - limbic network
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6
Q

what is the K-B syndrome and why is it potential evidence for there being more than just one circuit for emotion?

A
  • prescribed to the limbic system
  • bilateral removal of temporal lobes in monkeys (including amygdala, hippocampal formation and non-limbic temporal cortex)
  • produced dramatic change in monkeys’ behaviour, including their emotional behaviour
  • monkeys became tame and fearless with flattened emotional response
  • associated with specifically the removal of the amygdala
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7
Q

where in the brain is the amygdala?

A
  • two amygdala - one in each hemisphere
  • at the end of the hippocampus
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8
Q

how is the amygdala linked to emotion processing?

A
  • change in emotional behaviour in K-B syndrome linked to amygdala
  • removal of amygdala in other species showed similar effects
  • electrical stimulation of amygdala in humans leads to anxiety and fear
  • in people who have temporal lobe epilepsy, anxiety and fear make use of the same networks and they are closely related
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9
Q

how is the amygdala linked to fearful facial expressions?

A
  • people do not show specific K-B syndrome but we do have deficits
  • injected pp’s with radioactive tracer
  • presented people with Ekman faces from happy to fearful
  • more fear in face = more response in amygdala of people in scanner
  • support for idea of amygdala in fear processing
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10
Q

what is fear conditioning?

A
  • form of classical conditioning where repeated pairings of neutral stimulus with aversive stimulus result in fear response to neutral stimulus alone (now ‘conditioned stimulus’)
  • done with mice and electric shocks
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11
Q

how is the amygdala linked to fear conditioning?

A
  • amygdala is important in learning this association
  • amygdala-lesioned mice do not show this learning
  • if animal lesioned after learning association, learned association is lost
  • but, unconditioned response (i.e. natural fear response of shock on its own without tone) not necessarily abolished with amygdala lesions
  • amygdala is important for learning and storing conditioned fear response, but not necessary to exhibit fear response
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12
Q

what are the 2 fear pathways in the brain?

A
  • fear eliciting stimuli is processed through 2 different networks
  • low and high road
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13
Q

what are the 2 fear pathways in the brain: low road?

A
  • low road: quick, subcortical pathway
  • eyes to thalamus to amygdala
  • unconscious response
  • to quickly remove you from the threat
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14
Q

what are the 2 fear pathways in the brain: high road?

A
  • high road: slower, cortical pathway
  • thalamus, to visual cortex to amygdala
  • more conscious pathway where you have to think more carefully
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15
Q

what is the link between amygdala and emotional learning: study with controls and bi-lateral amygdala damage patients?

A
  • bi-lateral amygdala damage patients and controls
  • pair blue square with mild electric shock
  • measured through skin conductance = fear measure
  • in both groups there is a fear response to the shock
  • when just shown blue square, controls show fear conditioning however patients do not show any so they haven’t learned that association
  • but could verbally report association
  • patients with amygdala damage fail to show conditioned fear response, but could verbally report the association (‘when I saw the blue square I got a shock’)
  • amnesic patients (hippocampal damage)with hippocampal damage show normal conditioned fear response, but can’t explicitly recall the association
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16
Q

amygdala necessary for … and hippocampus necessary for …?

A
  • amygdala damage patients can verbally recall but not physically show whereas amnesic patients do the opposite
  • amygdala necessary for implicit emotional learning
  • hippocampus necessary for explicit emotional learning
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17
Q

what is the link between the amygdala and emotional memory?

A
  • memories that persist tend to be those associated with strong emotions: e.g. important events, being teased in school, accident
  • the amygdala plays an important role in memory enhancement through arousal
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18
Q

what is the link between the amygdala and emotional memory: study by Cahill et al., (1995)?

A
  • used normal pp’s and amygdala damage pp’s
  • looked at memory enhancement through amygdala to see if there is a role of A in ME
  • emotional vs neutral film clips in PET scanner
  • free recall tested some weeks later
  • recall was greater for emotional video clips
  • recall was correlated with amygdala activity while viewing emotional videos
  • stronger the response in amygdala during initial viewing, the better they were able to recall video details at later time point
  • amygdala plays a role in consolidation of long-term emotional memories
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19
Q

does amygdala play a wider role in emotion processing?

A
  • amygdala plays a wider role in emotion processing, potentially in relation to emotional intensity
  • studies looking at comparing stimuli that have positive/negative or neutral associations
  • negative associations show a greater response in the amygdala
20
Q

what is the link between the amygdala and individual differences?

A
  • amygdala activation in response to happy faces, but only in individuals with extravert personality
  • amygdala plays a wider role in emotion processing – perhaps in relation to emotional intensity, with individual differences playing a key modulatory role
21
Q

what happened when S.M asked to look at Ekman faces and recognise emotions?

A
  • present Ekman faces, most image is blurred apart from a small piece
  • which parts of face are important to be able to recognise an emotion
  • most important part of face to be able to recognise fearful expression is the eyes
  • by instructing S.M. to look at the eyes, S.M. was able to overcome her impairment in recognising fearful facial expressions
22
Q

what happened when S.M asked to look at Ekman faces and recognise emotions: what does this suggest about amygdala?

A
  • amygdala plays a role in automatically directing visual attention to the eyes when viewing faces
  • not necessarily important for detecting fearful expressions
23
Q

what is huntington’s diease?

A
  • genetic disorder with symptoms arising in mid-adulthood
  • symptoms include excessive movements, cognitive decline and severe structural atrophy of the brain
  • particularly affects regions like basal ganglia (important in movement control)
  • but atrophy also affects insula
24
Q

what is the insula?

A
  • region of cortex lying beneath the temporal lobes, bilaterally (have one on left and right side of brain)
  • located close to primary gustatory cortex involved in early processing of taste
25
Q

what is the link between HD and the insula?

A
  • people who had HD had selective impairment in recognising facial expressions and disgust and relative impairments in vocal expressions of disgust (e.g., the phrase EW)
  • degree of disgust-related impairment is correlated with amount of insula damage
26
Q

what is the insula important for and engaged in?

A
  • insula important for recognition and experience of disgust
  • insula also engaged when observing others’ experience of disgust (‘simulation theory of emotion’)
27
Q

what is the link between disgust and insula: presenting facial expressions study - Phillips et al., (1997)?

A
  • presenting people with facial expressions in the scanner
  • different intensities of disgust and neutral faces
  • found greater response in insular cortex to stronger expressions of disgust
  • direct link between insula and processing of disgust facial expressions
28
Q

what is the link between disgust and insula: overlap between recognising disgust in others and experiencing disgust ourselves - Wicker et al., (2003)?

A
  • observed actors smelling and reacting to disgusting, pleasant and neutral odours in video clips and had pp’s smell disgusting or pleasant odours themselves
  • viewed it in others and experienced it themselves
  • found that activity was clustering in insular cortex
  • insula responding to smelling disgusting smells and active in response to viewing others expression
  • overlap between those two activation patterns so same cortex areas for recognition and experience
  • understanding emotions in others might result from simulating those emotions in yourself
29
Q

what is the link between disgust and insula: neuropsychological study of damage to patients insula - calder et al., (2000)?

A
  • patient with insula damage selectively impaired in recognition of disgust across modalities
  • but understood concept of disgust
  • but when tested on disgust sensitivity (questionnaire to see how sensitive you are to disgusting situations) = DS score was lower
30
Q

what is disgust vs moral disgust?

A
  • literally means ‘bad taste’
  • may have evolved to prevent contamination and disease through ingestion
  • also used to refer to social behaviour that violates moral conventions
31
Q

facial expressions of disgust: distaste vs canonical disgust?

A
  • distaste = tongue out, need to expel taste out of mouth
  • canonical disgust = more typically used, nose wrinkle and upper lip curl, could use to indicate moral disgust also
32
Q

what are the components of disgust expressions (upper lip curl)?

A
  • suggested the upper lip curl expresses disgust in expanded form, e.g. interpersonal contamination and moral offense
  • since upper lip curl indicates offense external to the body, it may recruit more action from observer (observer may encounter the elicitor)
  • mouth gape, which informs about something in mouth of expresser, may elicit less action from observer
33
Q

distaste vs canonical disgust facial expressions study - conclusions?

A
  • CD > D expressions:
  • engages regions typically involved in ToM (as well as insula)
  • CD expressions engage more brain regions as people more likely to be wondering what people are disgusted about; less communicative signal
34
Q

insula is engaged in response to facial expression of disgust … ?

A

with greater personal/interpersonal value to observer

35
Q

what is the link between moral disgust and insula: study by Moll et al., (2005)?

A
  • moral disgust also activates the insula
  • participants read statements in scanner related to:
  • ‘pure’ disgust (‘he licked the dirty toilet’)
  • ‘moral’ disgust or indignation (‘as you arrived home, you saw that the nurse had put a spider on the baby’s face’)
  • neutral (‘you went to store to buy a load of bread’)
  • pure disgust = no evidence eliciting activity in insula - only in response to MD statements was insula activated
36
Q

what else is the insula involved in - besides disgust?

A
  • insula not just important for disgust processing
  • also involved in self-awareness, monitoring of bodily states, awareness of own heartbeat, experiencing pain
  • viewing others in pain also elicits insula activation but modulated by interpersonal relationship between observer and expresser (how close they are to)
37
Q

anger and response in OFC study: Blair et al., (1999)?

A
  • showed pp’s angry faces in a scanner
  • more anger in face = greater response in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)
38
Q

what is the role of the OFC in emotion processing?

A
  • computes current emotional value of a stimulus
  • integrates information from ventral striatum (reward-related) and amygdala (emotion-related) with context
  • allows for flexible changes in behaviour to stimuli that have become devalued
  • lesions in OFC cause difficulties in reversal learning and socially inappropriate behaviour
39
Q

who found evidence that ventral striatum is also important for processing anger, not just OFC?

A

Calder et al., (2004)

40
Q

ventral striatum is part of what network?

A
  • reward processing network
  • key dopaminergic terminal
41
Q

what is the link between anger and aggression in the brain?

A
  • facial expressions of anger elicit increased activation in OFC
  • patients with VS lesions impaired in recognition of anger
  • administration of dopamine D2 receptor antagonist (blocking dopamine receptor) produces reduction in participants’ recognition of angry facial expressions
  • MAOA L-carriers show structural differences in amygdala and OFC, and greater amygdala activity to angry faces
42
Q

why has most neuroscience research been concerned with the six basic emotions only?

A

partly comes from idea put forward by Ekman (1992) that there are 6 universal emotions and that they are basic because they each have own specific neural basis

43
Q

what is MacLean’s single system model?

A
  • there is a specialized group of neural structures working collectively to form unitary emotion system
  • many structures from MacLean’s model appear to be involved in processing of different emotions, but many other areas involved as well that are not considered in this model
44
Q

why is there little support for a unitary system localised in one specific circuit (going against MacLean’s single system model?

A
  • Murphy et al. (2003)
  • response in insula for disgust
  • response in OFC for anger
  • response in amygdala in fear (and sometimes OFC)
  • shows there is no one system that is responsible for an emotion
45
Q

how is emotion processed in the brain?

A
  • subset of discrete emotions underpinned by relatively separable neural systems in brain (fear, disgust)
  • no one-to-one structure-function relationship
  • structures/regions involved in processing of emotion are also likely involved in other functions, e.g. insula and self-awareness
  • shift from studying single structures to whole neural systems

ps2023 - thinking, emotion & consciousness (19 decks)

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