Exam3Lec6Amygdala,Fear,andEmotion

Question 1

What is an emotion?

Answer 1

Short lived biopsychosocial phenomenon that can promote adaptation.

Question 2

Emotions can be ____ or ____

Answer 2

adaptive: if they optimize adjustment to ongoing demand.
maladaptive: if emotions interfere with effective adaptations.

Question 3

Example of an emotion

Answer 3

Fear
Short lived
Consists of physiological changes for action (fight or flight)

Question 4

What is a mood?

Answer 4

Moods consist of persistent biases that prepare the organism for emotional events.

Question 5

What is an example of a mood?

Answer 5

Anxiety: Consists of sustained arousal, vigilance and apprehension of vague potential threats.

Question 6

A mood can be ____ or ____

Answer 6

adaptive: Adaptive if mood enhances function responses to emotional events
maladaptive: Maladaptive if mood interferes with day/day functioning

Question 7

What are 4 examples of disorders of fear/anxiety?

Answer 7

• Panic Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Social Anxiety Disorders
• Phobias.

Question 8

Disorders of fear/ anxiety is characterized by what?

Answer 8

a dysregulated fear/anxiety response

1. Disproportionate response to the event and produces maladaptive behavior.
2. Overgeneralized response which occurs outside of situations it should be expected to occur and produces maladaptive behavior.

Question 9

What are regions involved in Emotion/Mood? and what are they responsible for?

Answer 9

Broca’s Limbic Lobe
1. Thalamus: Responsible for processing sensory inputs
2. Cingulate Gyrus: Responsible for emotional experience.
3. Hippocampus: Responsible for understanding context of the experience.
4. Hypothalamus: Responsible for emotional expression
5. Neocortex: Responsible for emotional coloring

Septum/Septal Area
Temporal lobe/Amygdala

Question 10

You get home after a long day of studying and as soon as you turn on the lights of your apartment, someone jumps out and screams at you!
Explain how each region below plays a role in your emotion/mood
* Thalamus
* Hippocampus
* Hypothalamus
* Neocortex

Answer 10

• Thalamus: Sensory Inputs – People screaming at you out of nowhere.
• Hippocampus: Context – This person is a friend and other friends are here too; Today is my birthday. This is a surprise birthday party!
• Hypothalamus: Emotional expression – vasodilation, flushing – Joy/Happiness
• Neocortex: Emotional coloring – I’m exhausted; I have a ton of work to do tonight and want to get to it so I can sleep – ambivalence, frustration.

Question 11

How is the septum/septal area involved in emotion/mood? Lesions of the septum leads to what?

Answer 11

• Responsible for temperance/regulation of emotional responses.
• Lesions of the septum disinhibit the hypothalamus which leads to explosive violence and extremes of emotions.

Question 12

How is the temporal lobe/amygdala involved in emotion/mood?

Answer 12

• Temporal lobectomy leads to decreased fear, aggression, vocalizations and facial expressions
• Klüver-Bucy Syndrome

Question 13

What is Klüver-Bucy syndrome?

Answer 13

is a very rare cerebral neurological disorder associated with damage to both temporal lobes resulting in abnormalities in memory, social and sexual functioning and idiosyncratic behaviors.

Question 14

How does the amygdala play a role in fear?

Answer 14

The Amygdala is a substrate for learning fear. With experience, the amygdala changes how it responds to sensory inputs that are paired with aversive stimuli.

Question 15

What occurs if you stimulate the amygdala?

Answer 15

Stimulation of the amygdala causes increases vigilance or attention.
Fearful faces produce greater amygdala activity than happy/neutral faces

Question 16

What occurs if you have a bilateral amygdalectomy?

Answer 16

reduces fear and aggression in animals.
S.M. case study: Inability to recognize fear in facial expressions

Question 17

Explain fear conditiong with the rat

Answer 17

Unconditioned Stimulus (Shock) ->Unconditioned Response (Fear)
Neutral Stimulus (Cue or Context) + US (Shock) ->UR (Fear)
Conditioned Stimulus (Cue or Context) -> Conditioned Response (Freezing)

Question 18

Extinction of fear conditioning depends on what?

Answer 18

Context

our minds can associate fear with a specific context

Question 19

Explain the experiment where they performed extinction training on the rat in blue room
Fear acquisition
Fear Retrieval
Extinction acquisition
Fear renewal
Fear reinstatement
Spontaneous recovery

Answer 19

If previous context is reintroduced (i.e. placing mouse in green/purple room), the conditioned fear response will still be present.

If the mouse was placed in the blue room, it will learn that it’s safe there because as they sounded the tone over time with no shock, the rat learned that its safe in the blue room only.

In other words, mammals have an innate ability to distinguish safe from unsafe spaces. During fear/anxiety disorders, the ability to distinguish between safe and unsafe spaces in impaired.

if you have anxiety or fear this extinction is inhibited ( can distinguifh a safe or unsafe environement)

Question 20

Glutamate
1. Function
2. Action

hy

Answer 20

Function 1: expression
* Action: primary transimitter driving expression
Function 2: Consolidation and Extinction
* Action: NMDA/AMPA mediated LTP for both consolidation and extinction

hy

Question 21

GABA
1. Function
2. Action

Answer 21

1. Function: expression
2. Action: tightly regulates fear expression

Question 22

Fill in the black boxes. What are the function and actions?

Answer 22

Question 23

Fear-inducing stimuli activate stress hormones____ and neurotransmitter ____ release which facilitate learning and strengthen associations.

Answer 23

Fear-inducing stimuli activate stress hormones (CRF, ACTH, cortisol) and neurotransmitter (Glu, NE, ACh, DA) release which facilitate learning and strengthen associations.

Question 24

What structures within the amygdala are involved in fear?

Answer 24

Amygdala
Basolateral (BLA)
* Lateral Amygdala (LA)
* Basal Amygdala (B)
* Accessory-Basal Amygdala (AB)

Central Nucleus (CEA)
* Lateral (CEI)
* Medial (CEm)

Question 25

What structures within the extended amygdala are involved in fear?

Answer 25

**Extended Amygdala** * Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis (BNST) * Medial Extended Amygdala (MEA)

Question 26

What is the role of the Lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA) and fear

Answer 26

It is the The substrate for **learning to be afraid** (CS->US pairing) and **experiencing fear**

Question 27

What do lesions of the LA impair?

Answer 27

Lesions of the LA impair emotional responding to shock (experinecing fear). Lesions of the LA impairs both cued and contextual fear conditioning.

Question 28

Explain what occured in this experiment and results

Answer 28

Experiment: mice had lesions in the Basolateral Amy (BL) and Hippocampul formation (HF) and no lesions in the control (SH) Results: there was a significant decr in freezing for context and tone/cued conditional stimulation in mice with lesion in BL. The trial mice were not experiencing fear further strengthening the theory that the LA is responsible for fear conditioning.

Question 29

How do the LA neurons fire during fear condition?

Answer 29

LA neurons fire sooner and more frequently. These activity changes are in response to LTP (Consolidation – Glutamate) between the LA and thalamus, NOT the sensory cortex. ## Footnote Fear conditioning causes neuronal action potentials to bypass the cortex (higher order thinking) and strengthens the connection between the thalamus and the Lateral Amygdala. In the presence of the conditioned stimulus, bypassing the cortex allows our fear response to be significantly faster

Question 30

Does the amygdala work alone in fear conditioning?

Answer 30

NO, lesions of the hippocampal formation impair the ability to learn to fear the context, but not the cue, associated with shock basically: hipppocamus is responsible for contextual learning, not cued learning

Question 31

What type of neurons are present in basal and acessory bassal amygdala?

Answer 31

Anterior "aversion" neurons posterior " reward" neurons

Question 32

**Anterior “Aversion” Neurons** Express? Respond to? Reciprocal connections with? Inhibitroy interneuron connection with?

Answer 32

* express r-spondin 2 (Rspo2) * Respond to *negative valence stimuli* * Reciprocal connections with *PL cortex* * Inhibitory interneuron connections with *posterior “reward” BA neurons* ## Footnote PL is part of the prefrontal cortex

Question 33

**Posterior “Reward” Neurons** Express? Respond to? Reciprocal connections with? Inhibitroy interneuron connection with?

Answer 33

* Express: protein phosphatase 1-regulatory inhibitor subunbit 1b (Ppp1r1b) * Respond to *positive valence stimuli* * Reciprocal connections with *IL cortex* * Inhibitory interneuron connections with *anterior “aversion” BA neurons* ## Footnote IL cortex part of pre-frontal cortex

Question 34

Extinction of fear is associated with increased inhibition of ____ neurons and decreased inhibition of ____ neurons.

Answer 34

anterior posterior

Question 35

The hippocampus (Hcc) in conjunction with the amygdala (basal& basal acessory) mediate what? Inactivation of Hcc impairs what?

Answer 35

Context dependent activated of extinction cue elicited fear (contextual control of extinction) Inactivation of the Hcc impairs the retrieval of CS-Context associations (overgeneralization)

Question 36

Pathways of contextual control of extinctions

Answer 36

1. **Hcc->BLA** & **Hcc->PL-> BLA** are involved in context dependent expression of fear 2. **Hcc->IL->CEA** involved in suppression (extinction) of fear responses following extinction ## Footnote Remember: Anterior “Aversion” Neurons of the BLA respond to negative valence stimuli and have reciprocal connections with the PL cortex. Hence their role in EXPRESSION of fear along with the Hippocampus. Posterior “Reward” Neurons of the BLA respond to positive valence stimuli and have reciprocal connections with the IL cortex. Hence their role in SUPPRESION of fear along with the Hippocampus.

Question 37

What is the Lateral central nucleus (CEI) repsonsible for?

Answer 37

It acts like the LA of the amy (fear conditioning) * NMDA antagonism blocks acquisition of fear conditioning * Hcc and Ctx inputs also involved in context mediated extinction of cue elicited fear ## Footnote The CEA is the interface with motor systems and damage to the CE interferes with the expression of conditioned fear responses.

Question 38

What is the medial central nucleus (CEm) responsible for?

Answer 38

Primary output for expression or lack of expression of fear

Question 39

1. ____ neurons are involved in the inhibition of amygdala outputs 2. Extinction of fear mediated by ____ inputs from the hippocampus.

Answer 39

1. **GABAergic** neurons are involved in the inhibition of amygdala outputs 2. Extinction of fear mediated by **glutamatergic** inputs from the hippocampus. ## Footnote gabaergic neurons modulated expression of fear via CEm

Question 40

What does Prolonged activation of the basolateral amygdala by long duration “diffuse” cues leads to?

Answer 40

1. Activation of the BNST (part of extended amy) 2. Inhibition of the Cem ## Footnote The Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis (BNST) is a part of the extended amygdala.

Question 41

Expain the pathway of how prolonged activation of the basolateral amygdala

Answer 41

factor (CRF) onto the BNST produces a heightened state of arousal and vigilance (anxiety).

Question 42

Individuals suffering from PTSD exhibit difficulty with what? How so?

Answer 42

difficulty using contexts to limit fear responses 1. Impaired Hcc and vmPFC activation and exaggerated dPFC activation. 2. Absence of LTP in the PFC impairs the contextual regulation of the fear response. 3. have suppressed levels of BDNF. ## Footnote BDNF is critical for extinction of fear (Hcc->IL-PFC).

Question 43

Fill in boxes

Answer 43

Question 44

What are 3 types of Anxiety Disorders?

Answer 44

1. *Panic Disorder*: Associated with increased arousal in AMY, vmPFC, dlPFC and brain stem; low GABAA receptor binding. 2. *Social Anxiety Disorder*: Exaggerated amygdala activation only consistent finding 3. *Specific Phobias*: AMY and dlPFC hyperresponsive to specific cues

Question 45

What treatment is 1st line for anxiety disorders?

Answer 45

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) constructive restructuring of thoughts around fear inducing stimuli

Question 46

What are four psychotherapies for PTSD?

Answer 46

1. Cognitive Processing Therapy 2. Prolonged Exposure Therapy 3. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing 4. Stress Inoculation Training

Question 47

What are 4 pharmaceuticals useds for treatment of anxiety disorders?

Answer 47

1. SSRI’s and SNRI’s 2. Benzodiazepines 3. Pregablin 4. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy