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The Adolescent Brain > Lecture 7 > Flashcards

Lecture 7 Flashcards

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The Brain flashcards
1
Q

Emotions

A

Emotions do not equal just feelings or mood. Emotions are neural and physiological responses to the environment, subjective feelings, cognitions related to those feelings, and the desire to take action.

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2
Q

What are the components of emotion?

A
  • Subjective feelings
  • Neural responses
  • Physiological reactions
  • Emotional expressions
  • The desire to take action
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3
Q

Emotion regulation (ER)

A

The capacity to modify an emotional experience.

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4
Q

What does ER play an important role in?

A

In many mental disorders. Many mental disorders have their onset during adolescence and many mental disorders also have emotional factors, such as not regulating fear well in an anxiety disorder.

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5
Q

What are some examples of behaviours that generalize across species?

A
  • Social nurture (early maternal care/ attachment)
  • Fear learning
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6
Q

What are the characteristics of fear?

A
  • Activation of amygdala
  • Feeling afraid
  • Heightened autonomic arousal
  • Defensive behavior (freezing/flight)
  • Release of stress hormone cortisol
  • Startle potentiation
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7
Q

What types of fear are there?

A
  • Biological/innate fears
  • Acquired fears
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8
Q

What are biological/innate fears?

A

Examples are dangerous animals, heights, social exclusion.

Adolescents experience a heightened fear of social exclusion.

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9
Q

Acquired fears

A

A fear that is not biological/innate is an acquired fear. These fears are shaped by experience (e.g., dogs, clowns). These fears are learned, which means that it can also be learned to not be afraid anymore.

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10
Q

Fear acquisition

A

It refers to the question: how did we learn to be afraid of something?

The answer is: through conditioning. A neutral stimulus is paired with an aversive stimulus and becomes a feared stimulus (conditioned stimulus) which will evoke a conditioned response (being afraid).

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11
Q

Fear extinction

A

It refers to the question: how do we learn to stop being afraid?

The answer is: by exposing the person to the feared stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) without the feared consequence: nothing bad happens when the person is exposed. In this way the person learns that there is nothing to be afraid of.

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12
Q

How does exposure therapy work?

A

Through fear extinction, and extinction works by forming a new memory.

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13
Q

What happens to the old memory during fear extinction?

A

It is important to realize that the old memory is not forgotten. There is a new memory formed with fear of extinction.

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14
Q

What three phenomena show what happens to the old memory?

A
  • Spontaneous recovery: re-emergence of fear after a delay.
  • Renewal: re-emergence of fear outside of the extinction context. So the context is very important.
  • Reinstatement: re-emergence of fear after exposure to the unconditioned stimulus.
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15
Q

Ilse had exposure therapy to conquer her fear of public speaking. The therapy was successful. However, her fear has returned as she did not practice public speaking for several months. This is an example of:

A. Spontaneous recovery
B. Renewal
C. Reinstatement
D. Extinction

A

A. Spontaneous recovery

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16
Q

What part of the brain is critical for fear learning and experiencing fear?

A

The amygdala (a subcortical structure, part of the limbic system).

17
Q

The amygdala and fear

A
  • The amygdala receives critical information about the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US).
  • The amygdala has output projections to the behavioural, autonomic, and endocrine systems located in the brain stem.
18
Q

(Sub)cortical structures and fear

A
  • Subcortical structures show faster development. In particular the amygdala and ventral striatum (emotion processing regions).
  • Cortical structures show prolonged development. In particular the PFC (cognitive control regions).
19
Q

Go/no-go task

A

Go stimuli: fearful faces -> press button quickly.

No go stimuli : calm or happy faces -> withhold response

Assumption: people show mild freeze responses to seeing images of fearful faces.

20
Q

What are the results of the go/no-go task?

A

Heightened amygdala response to fearful faces in adolescents.

  • Adolescents had slower RT to
    fearful faces.
  • Stronger vmPFC activity – faster RT.
  • Habituation: freeze response decreases after repeated exposure to image (it decreases faster with lower anxiety).
  • Regulating fear is mediated by vmPFC.
21
Q

Habituation result of the go/no-go task

A
  • The lower the trait anxiety, the quicker the amygdala habituated to fearful faces.
  • Failure to habituate associated with less functional connectivity between vmPFC and amygdala.
22
Q

Who is the least effective in down-regulating fear responses to innately fear evoking stimuli (e.g. fearful faces)?

A

Compared to children and adults, adolescents are the least effective. This is paralleled by a stronger amygdala response to observing fearful faces and less downregulation from the (vm)PFC.

23
Q

What are the results of the experiment on cross species adolescent fear extinction by Pattwell et al. (2012)?

A

Both human and mice adolescents are less susceptible to fear extinction compared to children and adults.

24
Q

What are the implications of the experiment on cross species adolescent fear extinction by Pattwell et al. (2012)?

A
  • Extinction learning mirrors exposure, which is an important component of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).
  • CBT is the only evidence-based treatment for anxiety disorders but works in only 40-50% of cases.
25
Q

Summary on acquired fear extinction

A
  • The amygdala is crucial for a fear response.
  • Regulating fear is mediated by the (ventromedial) prefrontal cortex.
  • Adolescence is characterized by a maturational gap between subcortical and cortical brain regions; makes them vulnerable to psychiatric disorders that involve emotion regulation.
26
Q

Cognitive reappraisal

A

The (re-)interpretation of emotion-evoking events in a way that changes the emotional response to these events.

Thoughts that help reduce the fear of the stimulus.

27
Q

Examples of re-interpretation

A
  • It is not real
  • It’s protecting its owner
  • Things are not as bad as they appear to be
28
Q

What is the setup of the experiment on cognitive reappraisal by McRae et al. (2012)

A

First they are told to look negative, look neutral or decrease negative, then they see a negative or neutral photo, they then rate the strength of their affect and lastly they relax before the next trial.

29
Q

What are the results of the experiment on cognitive reappraisal by McRae et al. (2012)

A

The sequence from least to highest negative affect was the same for all the age groups. They had the lowest negative affect when they had to look neutral (<1.5). They had the highest negative affect for looking negative (>2.5). Decreasing negative was in between looking neutral and looking negative (>1.5 and <2.5).

The largest difference between looking negative and decrease negative was in the age group 18-23 years old.

30
Q

What brain part plays an important role in cognitive reappraisal?

A

The (left) inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)

31
Q

What does the IFG show in relation to cognitive reappraisal?

A

A linear age-related increase in IFG recruitment for cognitive reappraisal.

32
Q

What brain regions are associated with reappraisal? And how does the recruitment develop?

A

Cognitive control-related brain regions and the recruitment of these regions during appraisal develop linearly with age.

33
Q

Fear extinction versus cognitive reappraisal

A

Extinction = forming a new (neutral) association with the stimulus that was previously associated with an aversive cue; new learning.

Reappraisal = cognitively changing the initial interpretation of an aversive stimulus to reduce negative emotion; forming a new interpretation.

(vm)PFC

The Adolescent Brain (7 decks)

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