Neuroscience of emotions

Question 1

What are the three main levels of emotions?

Answer 1

Physiological arousal
(What changes in the body when we feel an emotion)
• Anatomical level
• Hormonal level

Expressive behaviour
(Looking at how we express the emotion with behaviour e.g., smiling)
• Behavioural level

Conscious experience
(Can be consciously aware of our emotional state)
• Cognitive level

Question 2

What did Darwin believe about emotions?

Answer 2

Darwin argued that expressing emotions are important for an evolutionary advantage, some emotions are helpful in protecting our body from dangerous situations. – These emotions are likely to have been transmitted from evolution, they are similar emotions that animals have like the “fight or flight response.

Question 3

What is the purpose of the neurophysiological changes that we encounter?

Answer 3

The neurophysiological changes that we encounter associated to behaviour prepare our body to interact with the external environment. Negative and Positive emotions can help us interact with the external environment. Negative emotions can protect us and allow us to move away and the Positive one might encourage us to move towards something (see emotions section)

Question 4

What is the biological purpose of emotions?

Answer 4

• Signalling function (that we might take action)
• Provide strong impulse to take action
• Promote unique, stereotypical patterns of physiological change and behaviour

Question 5

What are the six main emotions?

Answer 5

Happy, Sad, Fear, Anger, Surprise, Disgust

Question 6

Name some negative and positive emotions and how they can be useful?

Answer 6

Negative: Fear, Anger, Grief, Hate
• Useful as motivation for moving away from what one doesn’t want
Positive: Surprise, Empathy, Caring, Joy
• Useful as motivation for moving towards what one does want

Question 7

What are the two key controversies regarding emotions in neuroscience?

Answer 7

Does physiological arousal precede or follow your emotional experience?
Does cognition (thinking) precede or follow emotion (feeling)?

E.g., (During the clip from the Shining where Johnny is using an axe to break the door down and Wendy is screaming)
Does Wendy’s heart pound because she is afraid, or is Wendy afraid because she feels her heart pounding?

Question 8

What are the different theories of emotional responses?

Answer 8

Folk psychology
James-Lange theory
Cannon-Bard theory

Question 9

What is the folk psychology theory of emotional responses?

Answer 9

Feeling triggers autonomic reaction. For example, when you are happy there is a change in your physiological response. There is a linear link between emotion and physiological response.
Informal observation suggested that emotions cause the body to react
When you become happy –> Your heart starts beating faster

Question 10

What is the James-Lange theory of emotional responses?

Answer 10

Autonomic reaction triggers feeling. This is almost the other way around: the bodily response is first and it evokes the emotional experience.
James-Lange argued that the bodily response evokes the emotional experience

Question 11

What is the Cannon-Bard theory of emotional responses?

Answer 11

Simultaneous feeling and autonomic reaction. The brain integrates both types of information at the same time to provide an appropriate response.
Cannon-Bard insisted that the brain must interpret the situation to decide which emotion is appropriate

Question 12

Which theory of emotional response is right?

Answer 12

Neither theory is entirely correct

The James Lange theory is that there is emotional expression (physiological changes) and then there is the emotional experience (e.g., fear).
The traditional view has been that we have an emotional experience (fear) and then the emotional expression (physiological changes)
The Cannon-Bard theory suggests that the two occurrences happen at the same time

Question 13

What is the main criticism of the James-Lange theory?

Answer 13

Emotions induced by stimuli that cannot elicit a peripheral, visceral response is one of the main criticisms of the James-Lange theory. – you can still perceive an emotion without having a strong physiological response e.g., when you feel a bit happy you don’t have a strong physiological response that could be causing it.

Patients with a spinal cord transection (injury that doesn’t allow them to have physiological responses) can still experience emotions

Question 14

What criticism is there on the traditional view of emotional responses?

Answer 14

The traditional view has been that we have an emotional experience (fear) and then the emotional expression (physiological changes).

Visceral responses can often induce an emotional state in the absence of any obvious eliciting stimuli. E.g., you can feel happy without it being triggered from a direct stimulus.

Question 15

Must cognition precede emotion?

Do we need to have a conscious awareness before experiencing an emotion

Answer 15

Some emotional reactions may occur without conscious thinking. So, it’s likely to be a more complicated interaction between behaviour, cognition and emotion. It could be a three-way interaction between the high-level systems and physiological responses, they may interact to produce the right bodily response and the right recognition of the emotion. Sometimes an emotion will happen without any conscious experience of cognitive thinking about it.

Question 16

What are the two dimensions of emotion?

Answer 16

Valence (positive or negative) and the Intensity of the arousal.

E.g., Joy creates high arousal and has a positive valence.

Relaxation creates low arousal and has a positive valence.

Sadness creates low arousal and has a negative valence.

Fear and Anger creates high arousal and has a negative valence.

Question 17

What controls the arousal of our emotions?

Answer 17

Autonomic Nervous System (part of our central nervous system)
It controls the arousal!
It allows us to maintain a balanced environment for our organs.
It is part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed: breathing, heartbeat, and digestive processes.

Question 18

What is epinephrine?

Answer 18

A hormone that increases heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels in times of emergency. (This hormone is released in order to change the body physiology, when there is something dangerous in the environment)

Question 19

What are the two main divisions of the autonomic nervous system and what do they do?

Answer 19

The two main divisions of the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic). They work in perfect balance, if one is activated the other is deactivated. The sympathetic division is arousing and prepares us for a response whereas the parasympathetic division is calming.

Question 20

What are the similarities and differences between different emotions?

Answer 20

Similarities
• Physiological responses related to the emotions of fear, anger, love are very similar (you cannot clearly tell someone’s emotions from their physiological responses)
• Excitement and fear involve a similar physiological arousal

Differences
• Different brain responses to different emotions (at the level of the brain there is some degree of specificity, different emotions activate different brain areas and there’s different levels of activation)

Question 21

How does a polygraph work?

Answer 21

Machine used in attempts to detect lies 
Measures physiological responses: 
• perspiration 
• cardiovascular changes 
• breathing changes

Control-Question Technique
ANS responses to answers to innocuous questions (Is your mother’s name Betty?) are compared to those of target questions (Did you steal the money?)

Question 22

Whats the difference between perception and expression?

Answer 22

Perception – recognise other’s emotions or recognise that a certain emotion is related to a physiological change in the body.
Expression – Emotions are expressed on the face, by the body, and by the intonation of voice.

Question 23

What areas of the brain produce happiness/pleasure when stimulated?

Which hormone is involved?

Answer 23

The Septum (Nucleus Accumbens) is one of the areas that is related to feelings of happiness and pleasure. Stimulation to this area makes people feel very happy/pleasure.

The hormone involved in pleasure is Dopamine (A diffuse system that impacts many different brain areas, related to the Substantia Nigra and Nucleus Accumbens).

Question 24

How do brain lesions to the cortex affect emotions?

Answer 24

Decorticate (without cortex) animal models have shown unusual aggression to the slightest provocation.

Question 25

What is the papez circuit?

Answer 25

The Papez circuit (now called the limbic system) is the demonstration that sub-cortical structures are deeply involved in emotion.

Question 26

What does the papez circuit show?

Answer 26

This model shows that there are interconnections between the cortex, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus and anterior nuclei of the thalamus. The simplified diagram shows these four interconnected structures that are also connected with the neocortex. These structures are deeply involved in how we process emotion.

Question 27

Explain the role of all the structures in the papez circuit?

Answer 27

• Cingulate cortex – helps in providing the experience of emotion. It helps us put a label on emotion (“ah that’s fear”)
• Hippocampus – related to the memory of emotion
• Hypothalamus – related to the physiological change, e.g., increase in heart rate, breathing and skin

• Anterior Nuclei of the thalamus – ? (Not sure what its role is ngl I’ll ask)
Each of these structures are involved in emotional processing and they work together for emotional regulation.
Emotional processing is the information going to each of these structures and they work together to provide emotional regulation.

• Neocortex - controlling, colouring or inhibiting emotions. Giving different intensities or completely inhibiting them

Question 28

How are all of the structures in the papez circuit interconnected and also connected to the neocortex?

Answer 28

The cingulate cortex is anatomically connected to the hippocampus (which is located in the temporal lobe). The hippocampus is connected with the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is connected with the Anterior Nuclei of the thalamus which is also connected to the cingulate cortex.
The communication with the neocortex in the model is said to be related to emotional colouring, the intensity of emotion we experience and the way we inhibit emotions – the neocortex is controlling the emotion while the subcortical network does the emotional recognition and regulation.

Question 29

What evidence is there for the limbic system?

Answer 29

The main evidence is that if we make a lesion in the temporal lobe, there are a lot of alterations in terms of emotional regulation.
There’s no fear or aggression after surgery
Because lesions restricted to the cerebral cortex did not produce these results, deeper regions of the temporal lobe (including sites within the limbic system) were implicated.

This is called Kulver-Bucy syndrome. They removed the temporal structure in monkeys in an experimental setting (the animal can still survive) and look at the behaviour of the animal.

Question 30

What is the key structure for fear?

Answer 30

The amygdala is the key structure involved with fear.
Amygdala appears to be very involved in the perception of fear as opposed to the expression. If there is no amygdala there is no fear.

Question 31

Where is the amygdala located?

Answer 31

The amygdala is deeply located in the temporal lobe. We have two, one in the left temporal lobe and the other in the right.

Question 32

What is the left hemisphere involved in and what would a lesion cause?

Answer 32

The left hemisphere is less involved in the perception of emotion.
A lesion to the left hemisphere leads to depressive symptoms.

Question 33

What is the right hemisphere involved in and what would a lesion cause?

Answer 33

The right hemisphere is more involved in the perception of emotion, specifically facial expression and prosody (melody of speech that conveys sincerity, sarcasm, etc.)
A lesion to the right hemisphere leads to euphoria symptoms. Patients with RH lesion may have physiological altercation such as not moving the contralateral arm.

Question 34

Do different brain areas contribute to different emotions?

Answer 34

Several forebrain areas are involved in Emotional Processing. Mainly the pre-frontal cortex, the cingulate cortex, the insular and amygdala. The amygdala = fear (this is what we currently know the most about) and the other areas are involved in different emotions.