Psychobiology of Emotion Flashcards
Emotion is:
Brief, evoked, valenced responses to external or internal event
Examples of Emotion
Anger, sadness, joy, fear, shame, elation, pride
Mood
Diffuse affect state
Examples of Mood
Cheerful, gloomy, irritable, longer duration - listless
Interpersonal Stance
Colouring of interaction with others, situational
Examples of Interpersonal Stance
Cold, distance, warm, supportive, contemptuous
Attitudes
Enduring coloured belief / predispositions to others/objects
Examples of Attitudes
Liking, loving, hating, desiring
Personality Traits
Behavioural style and tendencies, individualised, stable
Examples of Personality Traits
Nervous, hostile, reckless
Definition of Emotion
Emotions are transient events, produced in response to external or internal events of significance to the individual, characterised by attention to the evoking stimulus & changes In physiological arousal, motor behaviour and feelings and engender a biasing of behaviour
Emotion triad
- Physiological responses - A readiness to act in specific ways - Feelings
Alexithymia is…
a personality characteristic in which the individual is unable to identify and describe their emotions.
Anhedonia is…
the inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities.
Disorders of empathy typically refer to
Psychopathy and autism
Empathy is the
ability to share and understand the emotional experiences of other people
Emotional Instability presents with a …
changeable mood (one cannot maintain consistency with emotions or control emotional experiences)
Emotional lability is characterised by …
sudden changes in emotion and behaviors of inappropriately high intensity that may include sudden bouts of anger, dysphoria, sadness, or euphoria.
Hypomania is a state of …
enhanced activation and arousal associated with typically a sense of physiological and psychological well-being.
Hypomania vs Mania - Which is milder?
Hypomania
When hypomania is associated with psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions, typically of grandeur, this becomes
Mania
A grandeur delusion is …
the false belief in one’s own superiority, greatness, or intelligence.
Mania is the more …
severe form that lasts for a longer period (a week or more)
Panic describes the …
Occurrence of panic attacks where you get heightened physiological arousal and the sense that you are going to die
Anxiety is …. intense than panic
less
Free-floating anxiety
no particular triggers or definable origin
Specific anxiety
very specific to particular context or worries
Rumination and worry are forms of
perseverative cognition
Perseverative cognition is a collective term in psychology for …
continuous thinking about negative events in the past or in the future
Rumination describes thoughts that …
repeat about things that have occurred in the past
Rumination is more associated with …
depression
Worry is more associated with …
anxiety
Worry describes thoughts that are
associated with the future
Functions of emotion include: (5 things)
- regulation of health (homeostasis, allostasis) - protection (defensive, immune) - communication (social) - attachment and affiliation - reinforcement, learning, memory
Operant learning & Pavlovian conditioning
Neutral stimulus + reinforcer -> motivational cue
James-Lange emotion theory suggests that
emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions to events (your emotional reaction depends on your interpretation of the physical response)
Hippocratic doctors were very keen on the fact that all thoughts, feelings, emotions were based in …
the brain
Aristotle felt that all emotions and thoughts must have a tight coupling in the
heart
Aristotle and plato talked of passion as an opposite of
reason
Descartes/ Spinoza - emotion from
evaluation of events with bodily expression
Darwin - 1872 - proposed that all emotions …
share the same evolutionary origins across mammalian species
Darwin - origin of emotion
defensive and consummatory reflexes - redundancy, communicative
James-Lange example of emotion
- arousal (snake) - heart pounds, sweating - fear (emotion) fear as a result of the physiological response
Somatic marker theory linked to brain damage of the
ventral and medial parts of the frontal lobe - people fail to generate bodily arousal responses to particular types of stimuli - fail to make right decision - put themselves at risk - behave abnormally
Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
feel same emotion whether heart is beating fast or slow, process emotional value of stimulus independently of what is going on in your body
Cannon-Bard came up with the
fight or flight response as a sympathetic response to stimuli but saw it as being independent of the emotional feelings engendered by a stimulus
dimensional models of emotion incorporate
valence and arousal or intensity dimensions.
Dimensional models of emotion suggest that a
common and interconnected neurophysiological system is responsible for all affective states
Duffy was one of the main proponents of the … theory of emotion
activation
Paul Ekman identified … basic emotions:
SIX - anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise
Jaak Panksepp put the forth the notion of basic …
emotional circuitry
Jaak Panksepps idea came from observations in
rodents
Jaak Panksepps 7 circuits/systems for ‘primal emotions’
Seeking Fear Rage Lust Care Panic Play
seeking emotion related to
wanting and reward
fear and panic circuits are related to
threat processing
Summary of theories of emotion (James Lange, Walter Cannon, Schachter and Singer,
JL - emotional feeling states originate in automatic changes in the body WC - what goes on in the brain is separated from what goes on in the body (experience same emotion for different body states) S&S - 2-stage model of emotion
Schachter and Singer - Constructionist 2-stage experiment
1962 injected with either saline or adrenaline - physiological arousal - room with someone pretending to be angry or very positive - those in the angry person came out feeling angry, those with positive came out feeling positive
2 stage model
arousal response interpret the arousal response to produce emotion
Lisa Barrett - Constructionist 2-stage - put forward the idea that emotional states …
are not differentiated enough on their own to show any evidence of discrete emotional types
Signals from each of the internal bodily organs travel up either
the spinal root - tracking back along sympathetic nerve fibres OR back up the vagus nerve and other cranial nerve to the brainstem
autonomic outputs follow the
vagus nerve and follow the sympathetics and parasympathetics of the sacrum - control the internal state of arousal of the body
within the brainstem there are a number of
neuromodulatory nuclei
neuromodulatory nuclei project both up into the …
forebrain via the midbrain and down the spinal cord
neuromodulatory nuclei project down the spinal cord to gate things like
pain control and physiological arousal through the sympathetics via noradrenaline system
as neuromodulators project into the forebrain and areas such as amygdala and hippocampus , they control aspects of functioning that regulate
mood, arousal, attention and reward-seeking behaviour
hypothalamus is involved in the regulation of
emotional states and physiological states
Stimulation studies in animals of hypothalamus - Cannon-Bard, Ranson, Hess - If you stimulate particular regions of the hypothalamus …
you can induce emotional type behaviours
stimulation studies in animals - example in cats?
stimulate rage attacks in cats (electrical stimulation of lateral hypothalamus)
hypothalamus is connected to what centres?
neuroendocrine, autonomic and cortices
hypothalamus mediates a lot of what behaviours?
motivational behaviours (low-level, homeostatic emotions)
within the midbrain, there is a projection from the … to the … striatum
midbrain ventral striatum
main component of the ventral striatum
nucleus accumbens
nucleus accumbent receives a … projection from the … … … in the midbrain
dopamine ventral tegmental area
nucleus accumbens is situated between the … and …
putamen, caudate
dopamine pathway is part of the … system of the brain
reward
mesolimbic pathway (reward pathway) connects the … in the midbrain to the …
ventral tegmental area to the ventral striatum (nucleus accumbens) of the basal ganglia in the forebrain
where is the nucleus accumbens?
basal ganglia in the forebrain
if you stimulate the mesolimbic pathway, it will stimulate the
nucleus accumbens
mesolimbic pathway is implicated in not only natural rewards, but also is seen as being hijacked by … such as …
drugs nicotine, alcohol etc
mesolimbic dopaminergic system is predominantly a mono…. system
monoamine
cocaine and amphetamines … the mesolimbic dopaminergic system the most
activate
Brain stimulation reward (BSR) is a pleasurable phenomenon elicited via direct stimulation of specific brain regions, originally discovered by … and …
James Olds and Peter Milner.
Reward prediction errors consist of the differences between … and … rewards.
received, predicted
the limbic system is a term that has traditionally been used to describe
brain areas supporting emotion
anatomy of the limbic system - traditionally…
rhinencephalon
the amygdala is the … centre of the brain
emotion
history of the limbic system (3 people)
Broca, Papez, Maclean
Functions of the limbic system
emotion, motivation, reward, bias, learning, memory, encoding, recall, recognition, survival
pathology of the limbic system (neuropsychiatry) including disorders such as
neurosis, psychosis, epilepsy, behavioural disorders, dementia
anatomy of the limbic system - what is considered to be part of it?
cingulate, fornix, hippocampal complex, amygdala, mammillary bodies, hypothalamus also paralimbic cortices (such as orbitofrontal cortex and insula)
hippocampus is involved in ….
memory
the limbic system is involved in social and emotional behaviour, what anatomical parts are involved? (4)
amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, Anterior cingulate cortex, insula
limbic system - reward system
mesolimbic dopaminergic system
neuromodulators of limbic system
noradrenaline, acetylcholine, 5HT, dopamine
amygdala is involved mainly in what reactions?
fear
amygdala and fear - shock or loud noise + what?
angry face
Joe Ledoux - views fear reaction as not being
emotional
reactions of the amygdala to threat can occur without
full processing (not fully conscious thought)
Insular cortex is located between what lobes?
frontal lobe and temporal lobe
the insular cortex is seen as being a … cortex
viscerosensory
anterior insula cortex supports integration of
internal and external information
feeling states that accompany emotions are thus mapped in the
insular cortex
anterior insula cortex allow physiological sensations to reach
conscious awareness
feeling states such as disgust or anxiety are associated with activation of
anterior insular cortex
ventromedial prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex processes emotions such as … by weighing up … … values
regret relative reward
anterior cingulate is the region that spans round the
corpus callosum
ventromedial prefrontal cortex is particularly implicated in
depression
anterior cingulate involved in
stress, emotional arousal, cognitive control
Paul Ekman came up with the FACS system which is widely used for emotion recognition, what does this stand for?
facial action coding system
facial musculature is complex but set up for facial
expression
facial feedback theory - if you rate a cartoon with a pen in your teeth rather than your lips, tend to find it
funnier
in imaging experiments - when you put on a particular facial expression, you get associated
activation of emotional brain regions
pupil size is an influence from how we process the expression of
sadness
perceive small pupils on sad face as more
negative/intense
bodily expression - what is observed
posture and movement
patterning of emotional feelings across the body, CVS region? what emotions
anger, fear, happiness
high heart rate = one of three emotions
anger, sadness or fear
skin temperature (high) = what emotion
anger
skin temperature (low) = what emotions
sadness and fear
low heart rate = one of three emotions
happy, disgust, surprise
depression is the …, with the loss of …, typically associated with …
persistence of sadness or low mood interest and pleasure fatigue and low energy
depression symptoms occur …
most days, most of the time, at least 2 weeks
other symptoms associated with depression
disturbed sleep poor concentration or indecisiveness low self-confidence poor or increased appetite suicidal thoughts or acts agitation or slowing of movements guilt or self-blame
in depression functional imaging studies there tends to be increased abnormal activity in the region of … extending into
subgenual cingulate cortex ventromedial prefrontal cortex
anxiety states are often associated with the enhanced … versus … arousal
sympathetic versus parasympathetic
anxiety conditions include:
PTSD Panic Specific phobia Generalised anxiety Social anxiety disorder OCD
Bipolar disorder describes a
cyclical mood disorder where episodes of depression and elation or hypomania occur
hypomania is associated with
impulsivity sleep disturbance, increased energy, grandiosity, hyper sexuality, irritability, pressure of speech
if delusions and hallucinations occur in the context of hypomania, it is called
mania
brain systems involved in bipolar disorder
orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, ventral striatum and to some extent the cingulate cortex
autism refers to a …
euro-developmental set of conditions which form a spectrum from normality
typically autism involves triad of impairments which affect
social and emotional communication
autism is associated with
narrow or restricted interests and behaviours, including behaviours that systematise
sensory hypersensitivity (more or less sensitive to particular stimuli) is also a key part of
autism
there is also an increased prevalence of what in autism?
physical symptoms
negative emotions, particularly … are important triggers preceding vascular event that occurs
anger
World Cup football - myocardial infarction presentations to casualty
increasing presentations
emotional events, directly or indirectly, can be triggers of
cardiovascular events
immuno-psychiatry is a discipline that studies the connection between the
brain and the immune system
sickness behaviours (stereotyped behavioural changes) include
anorexia, nausea, apathy, anhedonia, low mood, fatigue, social withdrawal, anxiety, irritability, poor concentration, memory impairment, psychomotor slowing
adaptive behaviour to sickness means the
whole-organism responds to infection
inflammation experiments - healthy individuals to injections of typhoid injection - induce an inflammatory state what happens to mood? and what changes in the brain?
worsening mood accompanied with changes in subgenual cingulate implicated in depression
summary:
evolutionary imperative to emotions definitions and controversies Brain systems - brainstem to cortex relevance to psychological health and psychiatry relevance to physical health and illness
link between specific collagen conditions, for example double jointed and vulnerability to conditions such as
anxiety and ADHD and inflammation and chronic fatigue syndrome
