Task 5

Question 1

Emotion

Answer 1

= cluster of three distinct but interrelated kinds of responses (physiological responses, overt behaviors, and conscious feelings)

• small set of universal emotions
• different cultures —> same emotions, different ways of expressing them

Question 2

Arousal/Fight-or-flight response

Answer 2

= collection of bodily responses, to prepare body to face a threat - either by fighting or by running away
- bodily changes mediated by ANS
brain senses threat —> ANS sends signal to adrenal glands —> glands release stress hormones —> hormones act throughout body to turn fight-or-flight response on and off

Question 3

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

Answer 3

Emotional Stimulus —> Bodily response (arousal) —> conscious emotional feelings

• researchers should be able to evoke a given emotion in a person by inducing the corresponding bodily responses
• difficulty with theory: many emotion-provoking stimuli give rise to similar sets of biological responses; physiological can evoke emotion (e.g. simple induces happiness)

Question 4

Modern emotional theories (Schachter)

Answer 4

• include the factor of cognitive assessment (context)

Question 5

animals and emotion

Answer 5

• seem to behave as if they feel emotions —> but never know if they experience subjective feelings same way humans do

Question 6

Influence of emotions on memory storage

Answer 6

• strong emotions can affect probability that a memory is encoded
• mood or emotion as one kind of memory cue
• flashbulb memories —> often imperfect

Question 7

Influence of emotions on memory storage

- mood-congruency of memory

Answer 7

= easier to retrieve memories that match our current mood or emotional state

Question 8

Learning Emotional Responses

- conditioned emotional responses

Answer 8

= behavioral and physiological CRs that occur in response to a CS that has been paired with an emotion-evoking US
- long-lasting and hard to extinguish
easily reinstated after extinction

Question 9

Learning Emotional Responses

- conditioned avoidance

Answer 9

= organism learns to take action to avoid or escape from a dangerous situation

Question 10

Learning Emotional Responses

- instrumental conditioning

Answer 10

= behavioral response of “avoiding” the place wher it was previously shocked

Question 11

Learning Emotional Responses

- learned helplessness

Answer 11

= exposure to an uncontrollable punisher teaches an expectation that responses are ineffectual, which in turn reduces the motivation to attempt new avoidance responses

• suggested to be component of human depressiong
  
  • have to show people how to escape

Question 12

Brain Substrates

- Limbic system

Answer 12

= thalamus, hypothalamus, cingulate cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala
- each emotion: activates many different brain regions —> emotion as function of the brain as a whole

Question 13

Brain Substrates

• Amygdala
  
  • Lateral nucleus
  • Basolateral nucleus
  • Central nucleus

Answer 13

= small almond-shaped structure that lies at anterior tip of hippocampus, collection of more than 10 separate subregions (or nuclei)

• critical in learned emotional responses and in emotional modulation of memory storage
• Lateral nucleus:
  
  • “where learning happens”
  • input from thalamus and cortex
• Basolateral nucleus:
  
  • output for memory storages
• Central nucleus:
  
  • output to motor areas and ANS

Question 14

Brain Substrates

• Amygdala
  
  • two pathways for emotional learning

Answer 14

(1) “direct pathway”: thalamus —> amygdala
- faster, less detail
- react quickly in a life-and-death situation, activating fight-or-flight response
(2) “indirect pathway”: thalamus —> cortex —> amygdala
- slower, more detail
- terminates fear response if the stimulus is not dangerous after all

Question 15

Brain Substrates

- Amygdala and hippocampus

Answer 15

• amydala causes emotional arousal and the release of stress hormones (norepinephrine), which a can strengthen memory formation by the hippocampus
• amount of norephinephrine predicts learning
• amydala: important for classical conditioning
• hippocampus —> episodic memory

Question 16

Brain Substrates

- Frontal Lobes

Answer 16

• amygdala interacts with cortex
• frontal lobes as seat of executive function —> “control center”
• functions:
  
  • balance between too little emotion and too much
  • role in helping people “read” the expression of emotion in others
  • processing emotional stimuli in a manner appropriate to the context in which the stimuli occur
• preservation

Question 17

Clinical Perspectives

- Phobias

Answer 17

= excessive and irrational fear of an object, place, or situation

• how it arises:
  
  • classical conditioning
  • humans predisposed to fear some things
• treatments:
  
  • systematic desensitization therapy
  • virtual reality therapy
  • blocking epinephrine

Question 18

Clinical Perspectives

- PTSD

Answer 18

= psychological syndrome that can develop after exposure to a horrific events, symptoms include reexperiencing the event, avoidance of reminders fo the trauma, and heightened anxiety

• why it occurs:
  
  • classical conditioning
  • individuals with PTSD: smaller hippocampal volumes
• treatments:
  
  • exposure to cues in absence of danger
  • extinction therapy

Question 19

Optogenetics

Answer 19

optogenetic tools = genetically encoded swathes that allow neurons to be turned on or off with bursts of light

• algae protein channel rhodopsin —> influx of positive ions in response to blue light —> on-switch
• reachable protein halorhodopsin —> influx of negatively charged ions in response to yellow light —> off-switch
• useful for Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy
• advantages: high SR and TR; no significant side effects found yet
• disadvantages: need lot of testing; goes all the way to genes
• negative emotions can be replaced by positive emotions at a neurobiological level