Emotion and Motivation Flashcards
Describe the neural and hormonal mechanisms underlying homeostatic drives like hunger
Leptin - hormone produced by fat that reduces fat
Ghrelin - hormone produced and released by the stomach and small intestine, pancreas and brain, it stimulates appetite, increases food intake and promotes fat storage
Amygdala - primary brain area regulating appetite with response to emotions
The lateral hypothalamus is associated with the sensation of taste, which reinforces eating behaviours
Identify key brain areas underlying fear, aggression, reward and addiction, and describe experimental evidence underlying these links
The amygdala has an important role in fear, required for fear conditioning
-Lesion in amygdala - show less fear
-Amygdala activated when viewing fearful faces
Amygdala and hypothalamus involved in aggression
-Electrical stimulus of the hypothalamus causes aggression
-Artificial activation of the ventromedial hypothalamus, ventrolateral subdivision causes mice to attack inanimate objects
The dopaminergic pathway mostly involved in reward/addiction is the mesolimbic pathway (dopaminergic neurons)
-Dopamine encodes reward prediction error (surprise)
-Rats with destroyed mesolimbic dopaminergic projections still seem to enjoy tasty food but they lack motivation to seek food
-Dopamine drives the wanting or motivation rather than pleasure
Describe how emotion interacts with cognitive functions like decision-making, and identify the relevant brain areas
The somatic marker hypothesis (embodied decision-making - gut feelings)
-Orbitofrontal cortex AKA ventromedial prefrontal cortex
-Patients with lesions on the orbitofrontal cortex don’t avoid risky decisions and don’t show stress when faced these risky decisions
Describe psychological models for how the subjective experience of emotion relates to physiological states
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