Lecture 8 - Neuroscience of Emotion and Psychological Disorders

Question 1

What is emotion?

Answer 1

A brief conscious experience associated with:
- intense mental activity
- a high degree of pleasure/displeasure
- physiological states which occur via activation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS)
- physical responses (such as facial expressions, body posture, and more)

Question 2

Why do we have emotions?

Answer 2

Adaptive and tied to specific behaviours:
- fear and survival responses
- anger and defensive/attack responses

Question 3

What is the ability to control emotions called?

Answer 3

Emotional regulation

Question 4

What system is the physiology of emotion part of?

Answer 4

Autonomic nervous system

Question 5

How many ‘core emotions’ are there

Answer 5

6-8

Question 6

What system are facial expressions associated with?

Answer 6

Basal ganglia

Question 7

Problems with older theories regarding the origin of emotions (two theories)

Answer 7

James-Lange theory:
- If this were true, each emotion should have a unique physiological state that can be distinguished by the person
- However, the physiology of most emotions is similar

Cannon-Bard theory:
- If this were true, emotion should be intact even if the ability to create physiological states was lost (e.g. spinal cord injury)
- However, emotions are often reduced in intensity in such cases (particularly positive emotions)

Question 8

The Modern View of the Origin of Emotions

Answer 8

Emotion is a product of complex, reciprocal influences of the brain, nervous system and perception on each other

Question 9

3 Pieces of Evidence that the Limbic System is Important in Emotion

Answer 9

1. The Case of Phineas Gage
2. The discovery of sham rage
3. Kluver-Bucy Syndrome

Question 10

What is Sham Rage?

Answer 10

Cats that exhibited aggressive behaviour in response to very mild stimuli caused by removal of the cerebral cortex

Question 11

Innate Fears

Answer 11

Some scientists have argued that humans have only a few innate fears (e.g. heights, loud noises, approaching objects, snakes and spiders)

Question 12

What do most scientists believe about fear?

Answer 12

Most scientists believe that majority of our fears are learned: e.g. EX100 associated with a bad exam, so bad fear every time you enter EX100

Question 13

Animal Model: Fear Conditioning

Answer 13

UCS: Shock CS1: Context CS2: tone, CS-US pairing elicits CR: Freezing behaviour

Question 14

Simple Fear Circuit and Findings

Answer 14

• Hippocampus is necessary for contextual fear conditioning
• Amygdala necessary for fear in general

Question 15

Pre-Frontal Cortex in Emotion

Answer 15

• connected to the amygdala; can inhibit it
• can prevent learned fear and other emotions (emotional regulation)
• connectivity between the amygdala and PFC is plastic and modifiable by experience, particularly stress
• the ‘loss’ of PFC control can lead to a loss of control over emotions (emotional dysregulation)