Emotion

Question 1

What are the 4 aspects of emotion?

Answer 1

Feelings, actions, motivational programmes and physiological arousal.

Question 2

Plutchik (1994)

Answer 2

8 basic emotions, on 3 different levels of intensity.
e.g. pensiveness, sadness, grief.
Other emotions are simply mixtures of these basic emotions.

Question 3

What is the Triune brain?

Answer 3

Maclean’s triune brain - brain evolved in 3 stages. Now found to incorrect.

1. Reptilian brain (brain stem)
2. Paleomammilian brain (limbic system) - emotions.
3. Neomammilian brain (neocortex) - executive function.

Question 4

What is neocortical expansion?

Answer 4

The neocortex is expanded in more evolutionarily advanced animals. Therefore it is larger than the limbic system in these animals. This means that these animals have higher level of cognitive control over emotions and feeling than less evolutionarily developed species.

Question 5

What is the link between emotions and consciousness?

Answer 5

Cognitive appraisal occurs in the neocortex. Conditioned pairing on stimuli with pleasure/pain occurs in the limbic system.

Question 6

What is the role of the hypothalamus in emotion?

Answer 6

Involved with the expression of emotions, e.g. rage.
Involved in the negative feedback loop between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex.
e.g. anxiety and panic - recurrent loops of anxiety from noxious/threatening stimuli.

Question 7

What happened when Cannon and Bard severed connection between the neocortex and the limbic system?

Answer 7

Sham rage when animal came into contact with non-noxious stimuli. There was no inhibition of behaviour from the vmPFC - required to control through executive function.

Question 8

What is the Papez circuit? 1937

Answer 8

James Papez 1937 - neurological studies on humans and lower mammals.
Believed that the emotion circuit started and ended at the hippocampus - encodes location of the bad experience in the past.
Cortical and subcortical inputs are integrated in the cingulate gyrus - centre of production of conscious emotional feelings.
This loop linked the somatic and emotional effects of mood.

Question 9

What is the Limbic System theory? Maclean 1949

Answer 9

Limbic system comprised of:

• Papez circuit (incl hypothalamus mammillary bodies and hippocampus)
• Broca’s limbic lobe (incl the pyriform + rhinal cortices, inferomedial aspect of the cerebral hemispheres by the CC).
• septum and portions of the basal ganglia (repetitive behaviour, reward and focussing attention).
• Amygdala
• vmPFC
• OFC

Question 10

What does the limbic system link together

Answer 10

Internal (visceral) states with the external environment (sensory input)

Question 11

What is the sole sensory input to the limbic system?

Answer 11

Olfactory - evolutionarily the oldest sense.

Question 12

What happens during stimulation of the amygdala?

Answer 12

Strong emotional response, e.g. rage and fear.

Question 13

What is the role of hippocampus in emotion?

Answer 13

Hippocampus encodes autobiographical information - episodic memories.
Encodes the info of the time, location, etc of fearful even.t integrates this info with the amygdala.
Encodes the contextual information of the emotional memory.

Question 14

What is the role of the hypothalamus in emotion?

Answer 14

Links emotion state with autonomic somatic responses - ANS. Eg sweating, increased heart rate. also controls the endocrine systems.

Question 15

What are the main regions of the amygdala? 20+ nuclei

Answer 15

• Lateral (integration)
• Centromedial (output)
• Basal (integration)

Question 16

What is the role of the amygdala in emotional memory?

Answer 16

Lateral amygdala encodes the CS and US information.

Produces the proportional response when the CS is next presented. associates memory with both stimuli.

Question 17

What is contextual fear conditioning?

Answer 17

When an animal associates the environment in which it received a shock (US) with the shock. Therefore, if it is place in that environment again, it will show the CR (freeze).

Question 18

What effect does striatal lesion have on emotional contextual memory?

Answer 18

No effect - striatum is associated with habitual learning and skills, and non emotions.

Question 19

What effect will a CS have on amygdala neuron activity in trained individuals?

Answer 19

Activity will increase, as the lateral amygdala encodes and integrates memory of emotion.

Question 20

What is extinction?

Answer 20

Uncoupling of paired stimuli that previously caused changes in behaviour.

Question 21

How is the amygdala involved in extinction?

Answer 21

activity of amygdala reduces during extinction (amygdala involved with fear), as the memory is no longer required.
the memory is inhibited by inhibit. inputs from the vmPFC.

Question 22

What happens if the extinction cannot occur?

Answer 22

PTSD - unable to uncouple the paired stimuli - still get same response.
Thought that the vmPFC is unable to inhibit the memory (not suppressed).