Fear Test- Terms 2 Flashcards
Hypervigilence. What systems mediates it?
people who are hypersensitive to threats which seize and control their attention (increased threat attention)
- mediated by arousal and cognitive systems—> the lateral PFC, ventromedial PFC, medial OFC, ACC, amygdala, NAcc - a part of nearly all anxiety/fear disorders
Devenport’s rule
all associations in acquisition (excitatory) and extinction (inhibitory) are intact, with recovery determined by extinction to test (units of time) divided by acquisition to test (units of time)
-a LARGER unit of time between extinction to test would result in a larger numerator, and thus a LARGER SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY
Bouton’s Occasion-Setting Theory
the R-O association is activated by a stimulus
- subject comes to think of the R-O association when it encounters the stimulus and that is what motivates it to make the instrumental response - 2 associations are formed: CS signals the US in acquisition, and CS signals no US in extinction. The acquisition association is not erased—the original memory that indicated the CS is dangerous is inhibited by new information that indicates the CS is actually safe - a particular stimulus, like the context of extinction, disambiguates whether the CS will be followed by the US or not. When in the context of extinction,the extinction association is dominant and covers up the excitatory association, preventing responding. Outside the context of extinction, the CR may be reinstated because there is no inhibitory association being stimulated or recalled to cover it up
sham rage
described by Walter Cannon when he observed electrical stimulation of a cat’s hypothalamus elicited rage and attack responses
- because he believed that without the involvement of the cortex, the feeling of rage could not be experienced so it was a “sham” experience - he hypothesized that the hypothalamus was the subcortical area responsible for integrating defensive behaviour and physiological responses - stimulation of the amygdala and PAG could also elicit similar responses in the cat—> led to the hypothesis that there is a serial defence circuit in which the amygdala, PAG, and hypothalamus are all linked
according to the somatic marker hypothesis, the insular cortex;
has reciprocal connections with sensory, emotional, motivational, and cognitive systems
- according to the somatic marker hypothesis, it interprets bodily responses experienced during an emotional episode - connects thalamic nuclei with the PFC—participates in the representation and elaboration of subcortical experiences becoming conscious feelings
Darwin (beliefs about emotions):
he had the idea that primitive human emotions are inherited from animal ancestors via natural selection because emotional mental states give rise to behaviours that help organisms adapt and survive
- he noted a number of emotional expressions are similar across species - emotional responses reflect emotional states of mind (feelings)
Somatic marker hypothesis
Somatic Marker Hypothesis: Damasio’s theory which emphasizes the importance of feedback from the entire body
- emotional trigger stimuli activate the action system, which controls innate emotional behaviours and physiological responses. These responses and behaviours then provide the brain with feedback in the form of somatic markers - somatic markers are signals that result from the expression of bodily responses during an emotional episode, which get “read”/interpreted by body-sensing areas of the cortex (ex: somatosensory cortex, insula, hypothalamus) - the body-sensing areas of the brain can then create a neural representation of the body state and provide a basic feeling - primitive emotions are aggregates of somatic markers, while elaborate feelings and full blown emotions require elaboration via cognitive processes
Panksepp’s Model
feelings and emotional behaviours are intertwined in the emotion command systems
- the feeling and responses associated with that given emotion are controlled by the same circuit, so identification of the circuit that controls the responses also reveals the circuit that controls the feeling - emotional trigger stimuli activate the emotion command system, which then produces the emotional responses - the primary process affective states, like basic fear, are processed in the fear command system involving subcortical areas like the amygdala, hypothalamus, and PAG - cognitive consciousness of the feeling, like more elaborate feelings of fear, require the neocortex to add memory, attention, and language abilities
emotion command system:
function in detecting stimuli, generating basic feelings, and controlling specific innate emotional responses for each basic emotion
- located in subcortical areas (mainly limbic system) - these hypothetical circuits are conserved widely across mammalian species
primary process affective states
primitive conscious feeling (basic feeling) present in all mammals and encoded in emotion command systems
-ex: fear, rage, panic, lust
high road
connects the visual cortex with the amygdala and provides it with more complex and complete information
- sensory inputs enter the thalamus, which relays info to the primary sensory cortex, which connects with late (secondary and tertiary) sensory areas to integrate features and construct a perceptual representation * late processing areas in the visual cortex are the origin of the high-road connections to the amygdala - provides amygdala with exact information (elaborate, more complex) about the stimulus - longer and slower but provides the amygdala with more information - uses the “what”/ventral pathway from the visual cortex
low road
connects the sensory thalamus with the amygdala (thalamic cells that project directly to the amygdala) and provides it with less complex information
- “quick and dirty” pathway—> shorter and faster, but less detailed information - provides amygdala with simple, primitive features of the stimulus (size, intensity, speed) - faster route because fewer connections/processing steps can respond with speed rather than with accuracy - uses the “where”/dorsal pathway which allows for defensive actions without any conscious awareness * both roads should be considered as non-conscious inputs to the amygdala—> the amygdala is a non-conscious processor of information from both roads
connections with the frontal and parietal WM and attention networks allow ____ ____from the high road to be used in cognitive processing and create conscious awareness of the stimulus
connections with the frontal and parietal WM and attention networks allow perceptual representations from the high road to be used in cognitive processing and create conscious awareness of the stimulus
explicit reappraisal. What brain area is involved?
(lateral PFC): using re-appraisal to change self-reported emotional experience
-interactions between the lateral PFC (working memory area) and the amygdala via semantic processing in the posterior neocortex
implicit regulation. What brain area is involved?
using reappraisal to change autonomic responses controlled by the amygdala
- interactions between the medial PFC and amygdala - implicit/conditioning
