Emotions

Question 1

How can emotions be defined?

Answer 1

States elicited by rewarding or aversive stimuli and their omission or termination.

Question 2

How can emotions be measured?

Answer 2

by measuring physiological/behavioural responses.

Question 3

Which regions play a key role in emotion?

Answer 3

prefrontal cortex, meso-corticolimbic dopamine system, hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus

Question 4

How could anxiety and fear be characterised without reference to subjective feelings?

Answer 4

a state caused by presence of aversive stimulus

Question 5

Phelps & LeDoux (2005)t think that the amygdala played a central role in conditioned fear?

Answer 5

because it received inputs from auditory and somatosensory systems

Question 6

What is useful about neurotoxic lesions?

Answer 6

Only neurons in that region are destroyed, not any other connections from other areas. This means a direct link between neurons and behavioural responses can be made

Question 7

The lateral amygdala responds to aversive stimuli and then after making associations will produce the same response to a neutral stimulus. What can be said about the lateral amygdala?

Answer 7

The LA neurons have fear-conditioning-related plasticity

Question 8

The ___________ is involved in fear responses, perhaps because of it’s close connections with the amygdala and hypothalamus.

Answer 8

hippocampus

Question 9

Hippocampal lesions increase the time rats spent in the open arms of the elevated plus maze. What does this finding indicate?

Answer 9

hippocampal lesions reduce anxiety.

Question 10

People with panic disorder have less _____ in the left hippocampus. More activity in the hippocampus is related to anxiety responses.

Answer 10

inhibition

Question 11

Define reward

Answer 11

an object or event that elicits approach and is worked for. It is associated with wanting and liking.

Question 12

What techniques are used to identify brain substrates of reward?

Answer 12

classical: instrumental conditioning, intracranial electrical self-stimulation, intracranial drug self-administration and intracerebral microdialysis to measure neurotransmitters.

Question 13

Where in the brain is dopamine produced?

Answer 13

substantia nigra and VTA

Question 14

Describe the mesolimbic dopamine pathway

Answer 14

Dopaminergic neurons project from the VTA to the nucleus accumbens thus increasing the dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens.

Question 15

Describe the mesocortical dopamine pathway

Answer 15

Dopaminergic neurons project from the VTA to the PFC.

Question 16

Dopamine produced by the nucleus accumbens is associated with _____ rather than pleasure.

Answer 16

desire (wanting)

Question 17

Dopamine _________ block behavioural effects of rewards such as lever pressing and approach.

Answer 17

antagonists

Question 18

How can pleasure (liking) and desire (wanting) be differentiated?

Answer 18

Berridge & Robinson (2003) came up with an objective measure of liking based on facial expressions.

Question 19

Dopamine receptors increase “wanting” and ____ receptors increase “liking”

Answer 19

opioid

Question 20

Dopamine isn’t only associated with reward but also fear-related responses. True or false?

Answer 20

true

Question 21

The nucleus accumbens elicits both appetitive and _____ behaviours. These are mediated by ______.

Answer 21

defensive, dopamine.

Question 22

What is an implication of the discovery of the overlap between brain substrates of positive and negative emotions?

Answer 22

The brain substrates such as dopamine, nucleus accumbens and amygdala may not play a specific role in emotions but instead contribute to cognitive processes associated with aversive and appetitive stimuli (e.g salience signalling and attention)