Introduction Flashcards
What is Affective Neuroscience?
An interdisciplinary area within the field of Neurosciences, that emerged around 1990. It studies the neural mechanisms underlying the
recognition, generation, experience, and
regulation of emotion, through basic research with animal models, and human studies (healthy, lesioned & psychopathology) and by integrating theoretical and empirical
contributes from psychology, psychiatry,
neurology, biology, and philosoph
Who coined the term Affective Neuroscience?
the term “Affective Neuroscience” was coined in 1992 by Panksepp
What did Panksepp think?
He thought that the issue of basic emotions could no longer be credibly discussed without adequate consideration of the relevant brain research in the area.
What’s neuroscience?
The interdisciplinary study of the nervous system. Derived from the merging of neuroanatomy (structure of neural
tissue and nerve cells), neurophysiology (how neural tissue and nerve cells function), and neurochemistry (chemical basis of neural activity). Affective Neuroscience is specifically focused on the neural basis of human emotion
What are the key questions of Affective Neuroscience?
Which brain system(s) underlie emotional
processing?
Do different brain regions underlie different
emotions, or are all emotions a function of the same basic brain circuitry?
How do differences in these systems relate to
differences in the emotional experience of
individuals?
How does emotion processing in the brain relate to bodily changes associated with emotion?
How does emotion processing in the brain interact with cognition, motor behavior, language and motivation?
What was Darwin’s thought?
Animal emotions are homologues for
human emotions, a limited set of ‘basic’ emotions are present across species and across cultures
What is an emotion according to James-Lange’s theory?
emotion is generated by awareness
of the physiological (visceral and somatic) changes that occur in response to stimuli in the environment. This theory implies that, since emotion occurs after and because of bodily
changes, then the perception of changes in the body is necessary to have emotions, and different emotions (fear, sadness, anger,
surprise, joy, etc.) should be supported by specific physiological patterns (and neural circuitries).
Which are the early functional neuroanatomical models of emotion?
• Cannon-Bard (1929)
• Papez (1937)
• MacLean (1949)
What is an emotion according to Cannon-Bard’s Theory?
Visceral sensation cannot account for emotion; a central system for emotional experience - separate from the brain system for visceral sensation - is required
The thalamus receives sensory information and relays it simultaneously to the hypothalamus (visceral and somatic changes) and the cortex (emotional experience & top-down control of emotional response).
Studies of the effects of brain lesions on the
emotional behavior in cats had identified the
hypothalamus as a critical center for the
coordination of the autonomic and somatic
components of emotional behavior, and the cortex as crucial for inhibiting and directing emotional responses
What’s the role of hypothalamus in emotional response?
Electrical stimulation of different nuclei of the hypothalamus induces well-organized,
sophisticated and recognizable emotional responses in animals.
What was Olds and Milner contribution?
demonstrated that the hypothalamus (lateral
region) is also involved in the processing of
rewarding stimuli
What are the critiques to Cannon-Bard’s Theory?
Focused on sympathetic activation and on
responses to unpleasant stimuli
The thalamus is not the key brain structure
The amygdala was left out
What’s the most relevant influence of Cannon and Bard’s work?
the experimental elucidation of specific neural circuits involved in the expression (and presumably, the experience) of emotion, in direct opposition to James’s notion that there are no specific neural centers of emotion
What’s the Papez circuit?
A proposed mechanism of emotion according to which sensory information follows two separate streams: “thought” and “feeling”
The cingulate cortex generates feelings (conscious emotional experience) through
either stream and modulates emotional responses through top-down control
The hypothalamus is still a key structure in the central neural circuit of emotion
What’s the contribute of MacLean?
Integrated Papez’s and Cannon-Bard’s ideas with findings obtained with bilateral removal of temporal lobes in monkeys (Kluver-Bucy syndrome).
MacLean viewed the brain as a triune architecture:
- Reptilian brain (basal ganglia, brainstem; daily routines and ritual displays related to primitive emotional responses like aggression, courtship)
- Old mammalian brain (thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala,
cingulate cortex; feeding, defense, and “social emotions” related to parental care, social bonds, affiliation)
- Neomammalian brain (neocortex; problem-solving, planning, cognitive functions, top-down control over emotional responses)
How is it now called the old mammalian brain of MacLean?
It is called limbic system and included the
anterior thalamic nuclei, the hippocampus, the
hypothalamus, the septum, the amygdala, &
cingulate cortex.
The limbic system, and particularly the hippocampal formation (a term that included the amygdala), generates emotional feelings by
integrating ongoing perception of sensory input and feedback information of bodily changes (The concept of a unified limbic system is a convenient but imprecise shorthand)
