Emotions/Stress/Decisions Flashcards
What are EMOTIONS?
hard to encompass, moods are longer lasting emotions and emotions influence how we act (make us likely to flee/fight etc.)
They have evolutionary value and are linked to value itself. Impaired emotions do not make you act more rationally. They suppress info.
Are emotions lateralized in the brain?
What are the models to explain this?
No. Not really. THere are two models.
1) right hemisphere model: RH is specialized for emotion, percpetion, expression and experience of emotions. LH is for language.
2) Valence model: RH is for processing negative emotions and LH is for positive emotions.
Meta analysis shows us that both are involved in boht! Lateralization occurs but is not consistent. No relationship.
What are the dimentions of emotions? what is a discrete emotion?
Discrete (paul ekman) says emotions are categories and you make complicated emotions by combining these categories. - not super well suppored. Some emotions are universal, and sometake many different behavioral qualities.
VALENCE AND LEVEL OF AROUSAL. is the 2D model we like to use.
Can separate things like excitement and happiness.
Thought to guide perception and action…but
Limitations of 2D model:can’t do things like ambivalence (something is good and bad) and doesn’t explain why we sometimes like/approach bad things (sad/scary movies/music)
What are regions of emotion?
Lots of overlap.
Prefrontal for happiness, but not real regions, depends on experience.
Hippo, amygdala, association cortex.
Mostly a population code. not 1:1.
What is Kluver- Bucy syndrome?
a Lack of fear due to Anterior temporal lobectomy (take off cortex and amygdala) likely due to damage to amygdala.
- hyperorality (examining with mouth)
-misdirected hypersexuality
-repeated investigation of familiar objects.
Not fearful of snakes/humans.
Who is patient SM?
Complete bilateral amygdala loss, who doesn’t experience fear. Genetic condition that causes amygdala to be calcified. No experience of fear whatsoever self reported or physiologically measured. Can’t read faces of anger/fear very well.
Only experiences fear when exposed to Co2 (suffacation)
Maybe because fear has a learning component.
Cannot judge trustworthyness of faces.
Doesn’t recognize potential dangers.
No sense of personal space.
Amygdala is involved in the CODING of fear and LEARNING fearful things.
Speculate: if it was damaged earlier in life she would have learned to be fearful of certian things
Is the amygdala negatively valenced?
Fires for good and bad things in roughly equal numbers. Some fire for arousal rather than valence (good and bad things). BUT sometimes you need to learn bad things more than the good things first. (caution of dangerous things is learned more than your liking of ice cream)
Stimulus devaluation: updating your values (i.e the 17th slice of pizza isn’t good anymore) but rats with amygdala damage do not devalue stimuli.
Punishment is worth more than reward. smaller punishment = bigger reward, which makes interpretation difficult.
Appetitive takes longer
Aversive is rapid.
What is the duration, types and effects of stressors? What even are stressors in your physiological response?
Stressors are activated on multiple pathways. Hypothalamus and anterior pituitary leads to glucorticoid release, and sympathetic system leads to adrenal medulla which releases catecholamiens (no and epinephrine)
Duration: acute (health promoting - constrict blood vessels, boost immune system, ignore irrelevant stim in the room)
chronic (health impairing- immune compromised, sick often)
Types: Active (restraint, tail pinch, subordination - bigger rat beating up smaller rat)
Passive (neglect, maternal separation, social isolation)
Effects: short term (immune system, attention) Long term (immune system, decision making)
What makes chronic stress so bad??
Compromises immune functioning
Compromises mental health
Reduces hippo volume (Dendritic branching)
Increases PFC (prefrontal cortex) catecholamines like dopamine and norepinephrine, BUT decreases PFC function when their numbers are too high! - when in life or death sitution this is okay cause PFC would just get in the way of escaping, habitual systems kick in.
Reduces performance on hippo or PFC dependant tasks
Impairs decision making.
Yerkes dodson law is what you want. optimally stressed.
- if you are too stressed, it shuts down completely for survival
- if its not enough, you fall alseep.
What is the continued story of Phineas Gage that we discussed in class?
He went on to work in a carnival (and was still creative) and managed to drive a horse and carriage (due to habitual behavior of it).
Previously thought that his damage was bilateral, but newer findings see that it was likely unilateral to the left side with some white matter tract damage.
What is a prefrontal lobotomy?
When you stick something up through the eye and gouge out part of the PFC. This happened a lot, partially as a result of this dude Moniz who saw a chimp becky become less frustrated at a task after a lobotomy.
This procedure was done on women, prisoners, children to stop sociallly unaccpetable behavior. Left people needing serious help or as vegetables.
if it happens in kids they recover better.
What are executive functions?
The stuff that makes you good at navigating the world and makes you a functioning person. Damage to PFC affects this.
-planning, organizing, flexibility, multitasking, self awareness, rules, social behavior, decison making, motivation, inappropriate vs appropriate behavior, regulating emotions.
What does bilateral vmPFC damage do?
Executive function is damaged.
Don’t appear to have dysfunction, behavior changes in a subtle way, pts. often don’t know whats going on.
Maybe they start gambling, or do poorly at work. Get “stuck” on tasks like organizing filing cabinets.
Can’t prioritize
Deliberate on things that don’t have value (choosing socks)
Repeat their mistakes
Act innappropriately (swear at kids)
Troubles with motivation, thinking ahead, staying on task.
Observe bilateral damage.
Ventromedial damage is mostly emotional whereas dorsolateral is less emotion based.
What is unilateral vmPFC damage?
If you damage the right you see disturbances in bilateral, but if you damage left you don’t see much. pretty normal. MOSTLY unchanged personality, some small stuff.
What is the functional use of anger?
Emotions are a rational strategy, it motivates us to get what we think is fair. Things that make us angry are rooted in UNJUSTNESS.
Anger is motivated by sense of reciprocity and fairness to get what’s rightfully ours. Think: monkey and grapes.
