Chapter 28: Behavior, Emotions, Decision making, Personality Flashcards
focus
Focus is on association areas
Association Areas
Frontal lobe- Behind forehead, hairline, eye brows.
trouble sequencing and planning
-Divergent thinking is impaired- coming up with alternatives
Medial prefrontal area- emotional lability- person’s display does not match their internal emotion. doesn’t match their mood. (impulsiveness, apathetic- lack of emotion
-Eyebrow area- social and behavioral problems, they don’t think ahead and think about consequences of what they are going to do.
Goal-Directed behavior
Remember loops from BG out to frontal lobe and back.
- Loop to the hairline- executive function loop/goal directed behavior (what I want to do) helps me decide on a goal.
- All loops interact with each other and almost never damaged individually.
Goal-directed behavior loop
- Decide on a goal
- Plan how to accomplish
- Execute the plan
- Monitor success of the plan
The steps I need to take to help me get to a goal.
Damage- trouble with setting a goal, trouble creating the steps to do something/to accomplish something.
-Working memory, judgement, planning, abstract reasoning, Dividing attentions, sequencing activity, “divergent” thinking
it is the seat of divergent thinking- seta a goal, create a plan, and if one of our planned steps doesn’t work, figuring out an alternative.
-ability to come up with many ways of doing something in case one doesn’t work. Come up with alternatives
Medial prefrontal cortex- emotion loop
Drop down to the forehead (2nd loop)
-Emotions loop
Generates and perceives emotions
- motivation
- reward seeking behavior
- Making predictions when the outcome is uncertain
- Integrating emotions with facial expressions
- communicates with the primal brain (deep to emotion areas of primal brain)
- helps with the internal desire to do something
- Very active in reward seeking behavior/lights up with dopamine every time we see something on FB.
Emotion loop- signs of damage
- Apathy
- Loss of initiative- make things interesting- help get started (it will be hard, everyday help get started)
- loss of spontaneous thought
- loss of emotional responses
- emotional liability
Pt.’s give a damn is busted
- may get stuck in one way of thinking may have to help them.
- emotionally labile0 to be changeable, acting inappropriate, laughing or crying at random times when not correlated with what is thinking or happening
Emotional lability
- Abrupt mood shifts
- Involuntary, inappropriate emotional expression in the absence of subjective emotion
- Emotion is triggered by nonspecific stimuli
Treatment- support through it, wait it out and support through it.
Social behavior loop-eyebrow level
Loop between primal brain and rational brain that checks and guides behavior so that it is acceptable in social contexts/personal contexts.
- Mood- (subjective feeling)
- Affect (observable behavior)- outward display
social behavior loops
Uses rewards and emotional information to:
- guide behavior
- inhibit undesirable activity
- elicit autonomic activity
Recognizes social disapproval-guides behavior accordingly
Regulates self-control
Selects relevant from irrelevant
Helps with stimulus-response learning
*some communication with autonomic system
Damage- may not regulate behavior as well, may act on more primal urges.
-helps us to focus on what is relevant and screen out what is irrelevant.
Somatic Marker Hypothesis
- Emotions are crucial for sound judgement
- Emotions signal nonconscious evaluation of situation (“gut feeling”) and influence action- Primal brain and emotional brain talking back and forth to each other.
- Damage to orbitofrontal cortex or its connections may reduce over undesirable behaviors.- may reveal some unwanted behaviors
Social behavior
Good decisions require balance:
-amygdala (threat sensor)
emotional, impulsive, immediate gratification.
- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rational)
Rational, planning, goal-oriented
“Somatic marker”- circuitry (orbital cortex) provides link between two regions
- Integrates the emotional and rational centers for good decisions.
Social behavior cycle
Our clients who have damage to frontal lobe will have trouble checking primal response- acting in socially appropriate way.
- Stress due to cortisol release, can damage/impair communication between rational and primal brains.
- This linkage starts developing in utero, children who grow up in chronic stress conditions don’t develop a good linkage from rational to primal.
- Survival of the species is rule number 1- primal brain, thinking brain evaluates what the primal brain wants to do and either lets it happen or doesn’t let it happen.
Ventral prefrontal syndrome
Disinhibition- wont rationally check what comes into primal brain/behavior
- Lack of concern about consequences
- Impulsiveness lack concern for consequences
- Inappropriate behaviors
- Emotional lability
Damage- inappropriate behaviors- physical inappropriate behaviors- primal brain says “I am going to hit you” rational brain not there to stop them.
Inappropriate- don’t respond, redirect
Psychological-Somatic interaction
Stress response
Somatic nervous system- increase muscle tension
Autonomic nervous system- Shunts blood from skin and gut to muscles
Neuroendocrine system (adrenal medulla)- Epinephrine enhances cardiac function, relaxes intestines, increases metabolic rate -dumps epinephrine into the system getting us ready to fight or flight
HPA axis
(hypothalamus-pituitary adrenal)
- release cortisol (from adrenal)
- Mobilizes energy (glucose)
- Suppresses immune system
- Turns on anti-inflammatory system
- Turns on “memory maker” cells (hippocampus)
