Other #3 Motivation & Cognition I Flashcards
Motivation
Activate behaviors to satisfy needs or achieve goals
Hedonic
Pleasant experience
Rewards
things or stimuli that have positive value
Motivation arise through which two inputs?
Internal - Physiological error signals and circadian clock
External - Incentive stimuli
Regulatory Behavior (feeding, drinking)
- in response to physiological errors
- aim to maintain homeostasis
Non-regulatory Behavior
- Compensatory responses to deprivation, hedonic, or a drive reduction
- do not aim to maintain homeostasis
Example of Regulatory Behaviors - Feeding
Long term:
- Maintenance of Energy balance
- Regulation of body’s fat reserve
Short term:
- Appetite, eating, digestion, satiety
- Regulation of meal size and frequency
Anatomical Structure of Regulatory Behaviors
Hypothalamus
Example of Non-Regulatory Behaviors : Electrical Self-Stimulation by a Rat
- Electrical stimulation can provide a reward that reinforces the work
- Electrical stimulation and incentive stimuli activate dopaminergic neurons
Anatomical Structures of Non-Regulatory Behaviors
Ventral Tegmental Area of the Midbrain
What neurons signal error in reward prediction?
Dopamine neurons
Events that are better than expected
dopamine neurons to increase firing rate
Events that are worse than expected
Dopamine neurons to decrease firing rate
Events that are as expected
no change in firing
What type of behaviors are repeated?
Behaviors that cause better than expected or expected outcomes
Ventral Tegmental Area of the Midbrain receives input from?
brainstem, nucleus accumbens, and medial prefrontal cortex
Ventral Tegmental Area of the Midbrain projects to?
Nucleus Accumbens, medial prefrontal cortex
What does Motivation influence?
- attentiveness
- goal selection
- investment of effort
- responsiveness to stimuli
Diminished motivation
- Apathy: lack of feeling/emotion
- Abulia: loss of will power, drive, initiative
- Akinetic Mutism: wakeful state with no spontaneous movement or verbalization
Purves definition of Cognitive
- Ability to attend to external stimuli or internal motivation
- Ability to identify the significance of such stimuli
- Ability to make appropriate responses
Structure of Association Cortices of Cognition
- Prefrontal Cortex: Anterior Multimodal Association Cortex
- PTO Association cortex: Posterior Multimodal Association Cortex (Sensory input)
Connection of the Multimodal Association Cortices
Reciprocal
Association Cortices receive input from?
-hippocampus
-amygdala
-thalamus
-Brainstem modulatory systems
Association Cortices project to?
- Hippocampus
- Amygdala
- Thalamus
- Basal Ganglia
- Brainstem
- Spinal Cord
Function of the multimodal association cortices
- Parietal: Space and attention
- Temporal: Recognition and identification of stimuli
- Frontal: Planning and Decision Making
A lesion of either temporal lobe can result in?
Agnosias - difficulty recognizing / identifying/ naming objects
Definition of Attention
- Selective awareness of a part of the environment
- Selective response to one class of stimuli
- Limited in Capacity. Related to but distinct from consciousness
Clinical models of attention from least to most difficult
- Focus
- Sustained
- Selective
- Alternating
- Divided
Focused
- Ability to respond discretely to specific visual, auditory, or tactile stimuli
Example: Listening to hear if the washing machine has stopped
Sustained
- Ability to maintain a consistent behavioral response during continuous and repetitive activity
example: Watching an EKG monitor
Selective
- Focus on one selected stimulus in the environment and block out others
Selective can be divided in which two categories
- Overt: Directing our eyes or ears towards a stimulus ( Identifying a face in a crowd)
- Covert: Attending to a stimulus source without directing our eyes or ears towards the stimulus source (Looking at one person but listening to another)
Alternating
- Shift attention between tasks that require different cognition
example: Reading and making a recipe
Divided
Respond simultaneously to multiple tasks
example: Driving a car while talking to other people
How is attention directed?
- Exogenous (Bottom-UP): Directed by a stimulus
- Endogenous (Top- Down) : Directed by behavioral goals and other intrinsic factors
Theories - Early selection
- Low Level Gating mechanism
- Filter out irrelevant information before the completion of analysis
Theories - Late selection
- All stimuli are processed
- Completion of analysis before there is a high level gating mechanism that can filter out irrelevant info
There is possibility of top-down selection at?
early, middle, or later stages of stimulus processing
Current research of attention is focused on?
- effects of attention on stimulus processing
- control of attention
Parietal Cortex (Attention)
- inferior and posterior parietal
- Neurons are activated when an animal attends to a stimulus
- Neurons activated when animal responds to a behaviorally meaningful stimulus
- strength of the response = amount of attention
Frontal Cortex (Attention)
- Frontal Eye Fields & prefrontal
- Stimulation of neurons responsible for motor field where stimulus is located, results in enhanced visual performance
Other (Attention)
- Thalamus
- Superior Colliculus
Fan& Posner
Theory of Attentional Networks
Alerting
- lowest level
- change in internal state in preparation for perceiving a stimulus
- Thalamus, Parietal Cortex, Frontal Cortex, Brainstem
Orienting
- Rapid/slow shifting of attention among objects either in one or many sensory modalities
- Superior Colliculus, Parietal Cortex, Thalamus, Frontal Eye Fields
Executive Control
- Highest Level
- Prefrontal cortex
- Error detection, Decision Making, Planning
Right Parietal Cortex mediates attention to?
Left and Right halves of the body & Extrapersonal Space
Left Parietal Cortex Mediates attention to?
Right half of the body and extrapersonal space
Hemispheric bias is thought to arise from?
- Specialization of the left hemisphere for language
Hemispatial Neglect Syndrome
- inability to attend to objects / self in a portion of space
- Most commonly due to right parietal lobe lesions
Example: R Lesion - lose entire L side
L Lesion - still have R side from R parietal cortex
Function of Attention
- Enhance neuronal sensitivity ( Selectively enhancing neuronal responses)
- Improve Reaction Times (Improves the speed and accuracy of behavioral responses to attended stimuli)
