Chapter 12 - Emotion and Motivation Flashcards
What are emotions?
Cognitive interpretations of subjective feelings and experiences
What’s motivated behaviour?
- Behaviour that seems purposeful and goal-directed
In terms of describing motivated behaviour, is there such a thing as free will?
- No such thing as free will, we do what we find motivating
What are the two major behavioural influences?
1) Evolution (innate) - intrinsic behaviours
2) Environment (learned) - extrinsic behaviours
What are innate releasing mechanisms (IRMs)?
- They’re hypothetical mechanisms that detect specific sensory stimuli and direct an organism to take a particular action
- They’re pre-wired into the brain, but can be modified by experience
What was B.F Skinner’s main focus of research?
- Researched how environmental factors can select for certain behaviours through learning (i.e., reinforcers)
- Ex. Learned taste aversion
What does the term preparedness imply?
- Predisposition to respond to certain stimuli differently than to other stimuli
- The brain is pre-wired to make certain associations compared to others
What major brain structure is highly implicated in motivating behaviours?
- The hypothalamus
- Involved in maintaining homeostasis, which helps regulate behaviours to help maintain this state
- Controls the pituitary gland (hormones)
Regulatory vs. Non-regulatory behaviours?
- Regulatory - behaviour motivated to meet an animal’s survival needs (a homeostatic mechanism; involves hypothalamus)
- Non-regulatory - behaviour that is unnecessary to an animal’s basic survival needs (ex. reading, parenting; involve mainly the frontal lobes)
Posterior pituitary vs. Anterior pituitary?
- Posterior - Secretes hormones synthesized by the hypothalamus
- Synthesizes its own hormones
*Both are still directed by the hypothalamus
What’s the medial forebrain bundle?
- Principle tract connecting the hypothalamus to both forebrain and lower brainstem
- Control many motivated behaviours including eating and sex (sex is a non-regulatory behaviour)
- Also contributes to pathological behaviours such as addiction and impulsivity
- Dopamine is the major neurotransmitter in this system
What are the three major components of an emotion and their associated brain regions?
1) Autonomic response (ex. increased heart rate) - hypothalamus, ANS, ENS
2) Subjective feelings (ex. fear, love) - amygdala and parts of frontal lobes
3) Cognitions (evaluating consequences) - Cerebral cortex
What’s at the “hub” of the limbic system?
- The hypothalamus as it links the nervous system to the endocrine system
What’s the mamillary nucleus?
- Acts as a relay nucleus between the hippocampus between the thalamus
What’s the major role of the amygdala?
- Plays a role in emotion, emotional memory, and species-specific behaviours
- Receives inputs from all sensory systems
- Sends projections primarily to the hypothalamus and brainstem
- Intimately connected to the functioning of the frontal lobes
- Fear and anxiety are perpetuated in the amygdala
What’s Kluver-Bucy syndrome? What are some of the symptoms?
- Occurs when the amygdalas are removed or damaged
- Symptoms can include: tameness and loss of fear, indiscriminate dietary behaviour, increased sexual behaviour with inappropriate objects, oral fixation
What are the major areas of the prefrontal cortex?
- Motor cortex (M1)
- Premotor cortex
- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
- Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)
- Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC)
- Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)
*All found anterior to the central sulcus
T/F: Most connections in the PFC are reciprocal.
- TRUE
What is the DLPFC mainly responsible for?
- Internally-motivated behaviour (i.e., self-motivation)
- Involved in planning, attention, and working memory
- If damaged, an individual may become overly reliant on external cues as indicators to complete tasks
What is the OFC mainly responsible for?
- Context-appropriate behaviour (i.e., impulse inhibition)
- Provides conscious awareness of emotional states produced by the rest of the limbic system
- If damaged, social gaffes may start to arise
What is the VMPFC mainly responsible for?
- Decision-making; role in subjective value assessment (pleasant vs. unpleasant)
- Also acts as an emotional, social, and memory hub
- If damaged, reduced empathy can arise
What did Carlyle and Jacobsen discover when studying frontal lobotomies in chimps?
- Found that neurotic chimps became very relaxed
How was Agnes affected by her transorbital leukotomy?
- She felt unable to feel much emotion and felt generally empty
- Unable to plan or organize anything
- Lobotomies at this time targeted the OFC
What are the three main components of the reward system?
1) Learning the availability of the reward
2) Motivation and desire for the reward
3) Affective responses to the reward (liking)
*All three factors increase our contact with the rewarding stimulus
What area was stimulated in the Olds and Milner experiment with rats?
- The medial forebrain
- Rats will self-administer electrical stimulation to this area as its rewarding
What’s considered the root of the mesolimbic dopamine system?
- The medial forebrain bundle
What’s the source of dopamine in the mesolimbic dopamine system?
- The ventral tegmentum
Where does the mesolimbic dopamine system extend in the brain?
- Goes to the cerebellum, down the brainstem, to the temporal lobe, to the nucleus accumbens in the basal ganglia, and prefrontal cortex
Is wanting conscious or subconscious?
- Subconscious
- Dominated by DA projections
What regions of the brain promote the conscious feeling of liking?
- Generated by a smaller set of hedonic hotspots within the limbic circuit. Found in the PFC and brainstem
- The more activated hotspots = more pleasure
