Chapter 5 - Emotional Intelligence: Physiology of Emotions

Central Nervous System

The nervous system at the brain and spinal cord

Peripheral Nervous System

The nervous system that isn’t the brain and spinal cord

• Contains the autonomic nervous system

  • regulates physiological responses and therefore automatic

    • Within, has the sympathetic nervous system that controls “fight or flight” and handles arousing reactions

    • Within, also has the parasympathetic nervous system that allows the body to relax and “rest and digest”

• Contains the somatic nervous system

  • delivers information to the brain under everything the body can control

The Limbic System

The structures in the brain that are most important for memory

• Hippocampus: responsible for processing factual memories

• Amygdala: process emotional responses, especially fear and anger

  • Memories with those emotions are easiest to remember

• Cingulate Gyrus: regulates emotions and learns from mistakes

• Hypothalamus: controls the release of hormones

• Pituitary Gland: releases the hormones

• Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex: connects limbic systems and interprets physiological responses

• Periaqueductal Gray: responsible for fight or flight response

Hippocampus

The structure in the limbic system that processes your memory’s facts and events that took place

Amygdala

The structure in the limbic system that processes emotional events

• Most significantly anger and fear

  • Reason why we remember memories attached to those the most

Cingulate Gyrus

The structure in the limbic system that helps learn from mistakes and unpleasant experiences via processing the emotions

Hypothalamus

The structure in the limbic system that controls with homeostasis and the release of hormones

Pituitary Gland

The structure in the limbic system that releases the hormones

• Examples: Dopamine, Serotonin, Estrogen, Testosterone

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex

The structure in the limbic system helps make decisions by interpreting the physiological responses that are connected by all the structures

Periaqueductal Gray

The structure in the limbic system that is responsible for triggering fight-or-flight responses

• Comes hand in hand with compassion as it gives one the ability to act against one’s suffering

  • Ventral PAG: freezes one in place

  • Dorsolateral PAG: if the stressor gets too close, it will trigger fight or flight

Neural Pathway of Fear

The pathway in which the brain processes fear

• Example of how it works for fear:

  1. The Lateral Nucleus receives an external stimulus

  2. The Basal Nucleus processes the context of it by the hippocampus

  3. Information goes to the Striatum, which influences action

  4. Also goes to the central nucleus to send information to the Brain stem to make the body produce a physiological response

  5. Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex will place the label on the emotion

Levenson et al Study

A study on facial movements on autonomic physiology

• Results: Showed that each emotion has their distinct physiological activation

• It went against the core affect theory with the belief that there were too many overlapping physiological reactions

Autonomic Responses for Positive Emotions

Physiological responses to positive emotions tend to overlap the most

• The body doesn’t feel the need to change

  • greater activation of vagus nerve is strongly connected with positive emotions

Blushing

The most noticeable autonomic response

• Happens when one feels shame or embarrassment

  • Increased blood volume in the face

  • Culturally universal, most common in western cultures

Chills

A nonverbal behavior that can be either positive or negative emotion

• Goosebumps: Positive Chills

• Cold Shivers: Negative Chills

Nummenmaa et al Study (2014)

A study conducted where participants colored parts of the body where they felt the most of emotion

• Lighter colors mean the stronger the emotion is in that certain area

• Supports physiology

• Results: Mostly universal across several cultures

Sympathoedullary Pathway (SAM)

The pathway in the body’s quick response to a stressor

• The fight or flight response

  • Heart rate increases

  • Alpha-amylase (breaks down sugars) activity increases

  • Blood pressure increase

  • Breathing increases

HPA Axis

The pathway in the brain that processes the slow responses to stress

• Releases cortisol (stress hormone)

Cortisol

The hormone released in stressful situations

• Mineralocorticoids (MR) like cortisol and will bind to it

  • Activation will improve memory

• Glucocorticoids (GR) do not like cortisol as much

  • Cortisol won’t bind here unless MR is too full

  • Will impair memory

Stress & Memory

A little bit of stress is good for the body, but excessive stress will be damaging to the memory

• Hippocampus will shrink as a result

• The cortisol receptor GR will be damaging, as they don’t accept cortisol too well

  • Activation will impair memory as well

Trier Social Stress Test

A stress test that invokes stress in humans

• Stress can be measured using heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol, alpha-amylase, and heart rate variability (amount of time between heartbeat)

Cytokines

Proteins for cell signaling

• Elevated stress causes pro-inflammatory cytokines to be released

  • Induces immune response and fights bacteria and viruses

    • Can lead to sicknesses

  • Often correlated with embarrassment and shame