W6&7 - emotions ✅ Flashcards
What are the 3 components of an emotional response?
- Hormonal: automatic responses via brain mechanisms
- Autonomic: facillitate behaviours by providing energy (effects of hormone)
- Behavioural: muscle movements
appropriate for the situation
=> all three components are organised by different neural systems
What is the role of the Amygdala in fear processing?
- Lateral Nucleus (LA)
– Receive inputs from other brain regions
– LA also sends internal and some
external projections - Basal Nucleus (B)
– Sends internal and limited external projections - Central Nucleus (CE)
– MAIN OUTPUT NUCLEUS
– Sends projection to various brain regions
=> damage to central nucleus of amygdala reduces or abolishes a wide range of emotional responses
Which part of amygdala is responsible for conditioning responses?
- Lateral Nucleus (LA)
- Neurons in the LA communicate with neurons in the Central Nucleus (CE)
- CE communicates with the regions responsible for the conditioned emotional response
Explain the mechanism behind extinction of associated responses?
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)
Evidence:
- stimulation of vmPFC inhibit conditioned response
- extinction training activates vmPFC neurons
- lesions to the vmPFC impair extinction
Application: treating phobias -> activation of vmPFC predict exposure therapy outcomes
What are the 3 theories of emotion?
- James – Lange:
- stimulus -> physiological responses -> feelings of emotion
- evidence for: Hohman’s spinal cord injury interview -> overall decrease in feelings, greater decrease with more extensive disruption
- evidence against: cat with severed nerves in autonomic NS still be able to demonstrate anger, fear, pleasure - Cannon – Bard:
- stimulus -> thalamus activity -> physiological responses + feelings of emotion
- first to link emotional pathway to the brain - Schachter – Singer:
- stimulus -> physiological responses -> cognitive label -> feelings of emotion
- first to link emotion pathway to cognition
- evidence: emotions are result of interaction between physiological arousal (epinephrine-induced reaction) and cognitive interpretation (happy or angry situation)
What are the common treatments for anxiety/depression?
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Anti-depressants
-> Evidence: amygdala and insula activity during emotion perception is reduced by both treatments => predict anxiety and depression symptom improvement
=> HOWEVER, each treatment targets different neurocognitive mechanisms
What is the Process model of emotion regulation?
- built upon modal model of emotion
- treats each step in the emotion-generative process as a potential target for regulation
- 5 families of strategies for each step -> strategies are selected & monitored
What are the different components of empathy?
- Affective: Feeling what another person is feeling through recognition, being sensitive and having an appropriate affective response
=> lacking with vmPFC impairment
=> brain regions: inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) & posterior dorsal medial frontal gyrus (PDMFG) - Cognitive: Recognizing and understanding that another person is feeling something
different to what you are feeling
=> lacking with inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) impairment
=> brain regions: supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and anterior dorsal medial frontal gyrus (ADMFG)
What is the role of empathy & sex difference in empathy and its development?
Function: prosocial motivation
Measurement: Empathy Components Questionnaire (ECQ)
Results:
- Sex difference:
- significant for all components of affective empathy (F > M)
- small difference for cognitive empathy - Empathy development:
- significantly higher empathy in girls
- cognitive empathy increases for both
- reduce affective empathy for boys
What are the evidence that support and against expression of emotion is innate?
FOR:
- Cross-cultural research: emotion expressions are same in cultures that have not been exposed to each other
- Blind people study: expression is innate and no need learning by imitation
- Emotional vocalisation from different cultural groups:
- better same-group identification
- negative emotions are recognised across cultures BUT
- positive emotions are cultural specific
AGAINST:
Difference in emotional intensity between cultures (non-universal)
What is meant by the simulationist hypothesis?
Hypothesis: emotion recognition involves simulation of emotion that we are viewing
Evidence:
- people tend to imitate facial expressions to assist emotion recognition
- if the facial perception region in somatosensory cortex is disturbed by TMS -> impairs emotion expression matching
Neural explanation for Sex differences in emotion processing?
- sex difference in how two hemispheres process facial info
- M: right-sided asymmetry
- F: bilateral or left-sided activity
How can the brain recognise emotions?
(brain scan for activation)
- engagement between amygdala and the neural networks in all emotions
- left-hemisphere amygdala and insula dominance, except for some of vmPFC (right side but category specific)
Developmental differences in emotion processing?
- Fast facial emotion recognition developement
- Prolonged vocal/auditory modality for emotion recognition development
Hormonal influences on emotion?
Oxytocin:
- Improvement of the recognition of fearful and happy facial expressions by oxytocin in young adults with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).
- importance: recognition of fear is thought to inhibit aggression
Testosterone & Cortisol:
- recognition accuracy was significantly higher for audio-visual than either auditory or visual
- positive association between testosterone and recognition accuracy & between cortisol and reaction time
- significant but small effect size
What is meant by Alexithymia and its impact on emotion recognition?
- stable psychological trait
- person can experience emotions, but have difficulty recognizing and describing them
- often associated with certain psychological and medical conditions.
Impact on emotion recognition:
- support the idea that recognising external emotions and depends on ability to identify own emotion correctly.
- intervening role in social cognitive functioning.
Role of vmPFC in emotional regulation?
- important role in emotional regulation and inhibition of emotional responses (extinction).
- inputs to vmPFC: provide external information and processings in frontal lobe
- outputs from vmPFC: affect many behaviours & physiological responses (including emotional responses organised by amygdala)
Damage to the vmPFC causes serious impairments of behavioural control (personality change) and decision making
Impacts of vmPFC and dementia on moral dilemmas?
- vmPFC:
- more logical decision in personal moral dilemma by people with vmPFC damage
- difficult moral scenarios activate temporoparietal junctions (TPJ) and easy ones activate vmPFC
=> flexible moral network - Dementia: investigate (bvFTD) and normal Alzheimer’s disease
results:
- bvFTD more willing to do difficult personal decision AND
- showed more positive emotional response to moral dilemma AND
- decrease conflict and emotional arousal when answer difficult moral dilemma
=> dysfunction of the emotional processes that guide moral behaviour
