Cingulate Cortex Flashcards
What are the subdivisions of the ACC?
rostral/ventral
- involved in emotion regulation
- regulates autonomic and endocrine functions and is also involved in higher-order functions, such as assessments of motivational content and assigning emotional valence to internal and external stimuli
- has extensive reciprocal connections with the orbito-frontal cortex and amygdala
- also connected with nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, and anterior insula, and is involved in assessing the salience of emotion and motivational information.
dorsal
- involved in cognition
- involved with response selection and cognitively demanding information processing
- has extensive reciprocal connections with other frontal and temporal areas, especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus
- connected with the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex as well as the motor system and the frontal eye fields
caudal
- involved in motor control
- deep within the cingulate sulcus
- has extensive connections with the primary/supplementary motor and parietal regions
What cortex is the ACC part of?
The limbic cortex
What are the functions of the ACC?
-error detection, anticipation of tasks, attention, affect, motivation, modulation of emotional responses, decision making, empathy, impulse control, autonomic functions (such as regulating blood pressure and heart rate), and (?) social interactions
the ACC serves a specific evaluative function, detecting response competition or “conflict” and indicating the need to implement strategic processes to reduce the conflict and maintain performance
the ACC monitors signal mismatches between behaviour and goals
The ACC seems to be especially involved when effort is needed to carry out a task such as in early learning and problem-solving.
Executive function?
the ACC is a central station for processing top-down and bottom-up stimuli and assigning appropriate control to other areas in the brain.
Overall, anterior cingulate cortex appears to play a crucial role in initiation, motivation, and goal-directed behaviours.
What is the anatomical layout of the subdivisions of the ACC?
What is ACC activation like in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder?
schizophrenia is associated with decreased ACC activation
-example: when patients are often unable to respond optimally when they need to inhibit competing responses from distracters
OCD is associated with increased ACC activation
Supports suggestion of ACC in attention, (e.g., decreased attentional responsiveness [schizophrenia] v. increased attentional responsiveness [OCD] to mismatches between behaviour and goals)
That the ACC has been implicated in a number of psychiatric conditions (also depression, autism) involving a diversity of cognitive and emotional disturbances suggests that it is a vulnerable part of an important and common pathway involved in the cognitive and emotional regulation of behaviour.
What are some ACC activation level correlations?
- Greater ACC activation levels were present in more emotionally aware female participants when shown short ‘emotional’ video clips.[22] Better emotional awareness is associated with improved recognition of emotional cues or targets, which is reflected by ACC activation.
- The idea of awareness being associated with the ACC has some evidence with it
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identifies the anterior cingulate, to be specific the anterior cingulate sulcus, as a likely candidate for the center of free will in humans. Crick bases this suggestion on scans of patients with specific lesions that seem to interfere with their sense of independent will, such as alien hand syndrome.
What behavior is associated with damage/lesions in the ACC?
Behavior that is associated with lesions in the ACC includes: inability to detect errors, severe difficulty with resolving stimulus conflict in a Stroop task, emotional instability, inattention, and akinetic mutism.
Explain the ACCs connection to emotional regulation
emotional regulation might invoke the same mechanisms as the detection of, and adjustment to, errors. That is, emotional regulation also involves the detection of shortfalls from some optimal emotion and the need to implement changes to redress this deficiency. Accordingly, the anterior cingulate cortex might be involved in the detection of undesirable emotions and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex might be involved in the implementation of behavioral adjustments.
What is the current thoughts on the relationship between the ACC and consciousness?
Evidence suggests a relationship between conscious effort and ACC activity
-faster reaction times to pressing a button (in the “effort” group vs those not told it was a race) correlated with higher ACC activity
Explain the ACCs connection to attentional processing?
The ACC is a central station for stimuli and it assigns control of various processes to the other areas in the brain as is appropriate for task execution. This supports it’s role in attention.
What can happen with excessive ACC activity?
can impair consciousness, alter affective state and expression, and influence skeletomotor and autonomic activity
What can happen with reduced ACC activity?
reduced cingulate activity following infarcts or surgery can contribute to behavioural disorders including akinetic mutism, diminished self-awareness and depression, motor neglect and impaired motor initiation, reduced responses to pain, and aberrent social behaviour.
