Emotions Flashcards
What are 4 theories of emotion?
Common sense: stimulus-conscious feeling-autonomic arousal
James-Lange: stimulus-autonomic arousal-conscious feeling
Cannon-Bard: stimulus-subcortical brain activity- autonomic arousal + conscious feeling
Schachter: stimulus-appraisal + autonomic arousal (-also contributes to appraisal)-conscious feeling
What are the six basic emotional facial expressions?
Anger Fear Surprise Sadness Joy Disgust
Seen universally
What is significant about voluntary and involuntary smiles?
Duchenne 1862 - Faradization - electrocution of various parts of faces to elicit facial expressions
Comparisons of involuntary and voluntary smiles (ie w/ w/o eyes)
Dissociation in pathways for voluntary and involuntary smiles - facial motor paresis means you cannot voluntarily smile but can in response to humour whereas an emotional motor paresis is the reverse
What are the pathways for voluntary and emotional facial expression?
Volitional movement = descending extra/pyramidal tracts from motor cortex and brainstem travel to motor neuron pools in the facial nucleus and gives rise to a pyramidal smile
Emotional movement = descending extrapyramidal tracts from medial forebrain and hypothalamus travel to the same motor pool but give rise to a real/Duchenne smile
Obicularis oculi = cannot be voluntarily activated - a muscle of the Duchenne smile
What did Philip Bard discover? (Sham rage)
Sham rage = rage not directed at anything in particular
‘hoover off’ various portions of cats frontal lobes and found projections from the hypothalamus (lots of autonomic stuff here) were integral in this sham rage - fucking great findings here
What structures comprise the limbic system?
Also known as the Papez circuit
Hypothalamus, amygdala, frontal hippocampus, mamillary bodies, hypothalamus
+/-
Thalamus, parahippocampal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, orbital/medial prefrontal cortex, temporal lobe, fornix, corpus callosum
What is the structure of the amygdala?
Anterior to hippocampi in medial temporal lobe
Composed of basal-lateral, medial and central groups
Strong links with: orbital + medial PFC, basal ganglia and thalamus
Bilateral removal of amygdala in monkeys = Kluver-Bucy syndrome (hypoaffectivity, visual agnosia, hyperorality, hypersexuality, hypermetamorphosis - can see change in everything)
How does fear conditioning work?
Little Albert - bell+rabbit = an example
Neutral stimulus = tone; unconditioned stimulus = shock; conditioning = pairing the two; conditioned stimulus = tone
What are some inputs and outputs of the amygdala?
Inputs: Medial geniculate nucleus (auditory pathways) + Auditory cortex + hippocampus (all into lateral nucleus), Somatic sensory pathways including pain, mPFC
Outputs, from central nucleus: motor cortex + lower brainstem motor reflexes, hypothalamus
What happens within the amygdala?
LTP during fear learning = like classical conditioning but takes a lot more extinction trials to rid the fear + prefrontal cortex involvement
Cases of PTSD that recover with PFC engagement during therapy that then relapse when they get Alzheimer’s
What is the else is amygdala implicated in?
(fear learning)
Fear (+/- emotional) recognition - cant draw afraid faces, rate scary things much lower
Autism - slightly smaller amygdalae than controls
Psychopathy - also smaller amygdalae
What structures are involved in disgust?
Insula, putamen, globus pallidus - research in early days
