Neurophysiology of Higher Emotion

Question 1

Describe the functional components of cognition

Answer 1

• Produced by extensive synpatic interactions produced by pyramidal neurons of all neocortical association cortices
• Cognition includes:
  a. Language
  b. Social cognition
  c. Decision making
  d. Executive functioning
  e. Memory
  f. Visuospatial processing

Question 2

Describe the components to language pathways

Answer 2

1. Language conceptual system - what ceoncepts are we trying to communicate (e.g. noun mediation area receives input from ventral visual pathway to provide us w/ names of things)
2. Language mediational system - relays info to language implementation system from the conceptual system (surrounds the language implementation system)
3. Language implementation system - Wernicke’s area, Broca’s area, the arcuate fasciculus, and facial area of motor cortex
4. Spoken language

Question 3

Describe the language learning process in infants

Answer 3

• <6 months = ‘language universalists’ b/c recognize all sounds as a distinct sound, since that may be language (no distinction b/w relevant and irrelevant phonemes)
• B/w 6-9 months - begin to recognize specific language sounds of native language and eliminate phonemes that don’t occur in the language heard from the people around them
• @ ~1 year - process of eliminating unnecessary phonemes is complete and child starts ‘babbling’ to convert the learned sounds to spoken language
• A second language learned during language acquisition phase activates same pathway as first one and all spoken words intermingled regardless of language

Question 4

Emotion comprehension: Facial expression

Answer 4

1. Perceive facial expression - requires identifying face as something special (fusiform face area w/in the fusiform gyrus and superior temporal sulcus)
2. Add emotional component - emotional circuitry that produces emotion in us recognizes the same emotion in someone else (mirror neurons), amygdala - directs gaze to appropriate regions of face (eyes, nose and mouth)

Question 5

Describe how mirror neurons plays a role in emotion recognition

Answer 5

• Imitating other people’s emotions play a role when learning the meaning of different emotions so that we can appropriately interpret the emotions of other people later in life (developing social cognitive skills)
• The circuit below interacts w/ limbic structures via the insula
  1. Posterior sector of the superior temporal sulcus provides visual input
  2. Posterior mirror neuron system identifies the motor action (e.g. someone smiling)
  3. Anterior mirror neuron system identifies the goal of the action (e.g. someone is smiling because….)

Question 6

Emotion comprehension: Prosody

Answer 6

• Prosody = study of tune and rhythm of speech and how these feature contribute to meaning of the speech
• Aspects of speech that typically apply to a lvl above that of individual phoneme (fluctuations in speech)

Question 7

Perception of prosody

Answer 7

1. Primary auditory cortex required for basics of sound processing (identity of pitch, loudness & other sound characteristics)
2. Info then sent to RIGHT posterior superior temporal sulcus, w/ other acoustical info from secondary auditory processes, to begin forming the “meaning” of the loudness, pitch, etc of the vocalization
3. Judgement of the emotional stimulus determined by the frontal cortex

Question 8

Social cognition - Theory of Mind

Answer 8

• Ability to understand mental states (beliefs, desires and intentions) of others AND appreciate how these differ from our own
• CORE PATHWAY: Amygdala and connections to medial temporal lobes (memory, sensory processing) and orbitofrontal areas (sensory and emotional processing)
• Accessory pathways:
  a. Language - ‘scaffold’ for theory of mind, may become less important w/ age
  b. Executive functioning (frontal lobes) - connecting how someone feels due to an action/event
• Emotion comprehension is required for theory of mind to exist

Question 9

Decision making: stimulus encoding system

Answer 9

• Evaluates the evidence available in making the decision (e.g. decisions w/ known risks) and predicts the consequences of actions
• Anatomical substrates:
  1. Orbitofrontal cortex
  2. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
  3. Striatum

Question 10

Decision making: action selection system

Answer 10

• Learns and encodes subjective value of results of a decision w/ ambiguous risk (was my decision good or bad?)
• Involved in error detection (learning from mistakes and encodes the results)
• Anatomical substrate: anterior cingulate cortex

Question 11

Decision making: expected reward system

Answer 11

• Predicts expected reward from decisions w/ ambiguous risks
• Anatomical substrates:
  1. Basal ganglia
  2. Amygdala
  3. Insular cortex - processing of social emotions
  4. Intraparietal cortex - somatosensory processing & planning/intent

Question 12

Decision making: Explicit risks

Answer 12

• Decision in which risks are explicit/known and have enough facts to rationally make a decision
• Relies on stimulus encoding system

Question 13

Decision making: Ambiguous risks

Answer 13

• Decisions in which risks are unknown

- Relies on expected reward system and, eventually, the action selection system