L6b The social and emotional brain 2

How is an emotion defined

a state associated with stimuli that are rewarding or punishing

How are these states achieved

either inherently have survival value or can be learnt through conditioning

What are the three functions of emotions

internal signposts, guide social behaviour, and signal what to avoid or seek out

What is social referencing

when individuals (esp infants) use others’ emotional expressions to guide their own behaviour in uncertain situations

The visual cliff experiment by Sorce et al involved 12 month old infants, with 3 conditions (joy, fear/anger, no depth), how did infants respond to each condition

infants crossed, infants didn’t cross, infants cross irrespectively of mother’s expression

What is Capgras syndrome (emotions and facial recognition)

a condition where a person believes their loved ones have been replaced by identical-looking imposters – consciously recognise the person but lack an emotional response to them

What physiological response in Ellis et al’s study demonstrates an emotional processing deficit in patients with Capgras syndrome

do not produce a greater skin conductance response to personally familiar faces compared to unfamiliar

Identify the brain area

important for learning and storing the emotional value of stimuli

Describe the physical nature and the location of the amygdala

small mass of grey matter, located in the top of left and right temporal lobes

What does the amygdala receive

a large amount of sensory input

What happens to fear conditioning in animals when the amygdala is lesioned before learning

the animal does not learn the conditioned fear response

What happens to fear conditioning in animals when the amygdala is lesioned after learning

the animal forgets the conditioned response

Following on from the previous FC, how else can this impact on conditioned response be rephrased as

objects lose their learned emotional value

From knowledge on the impact of amygdala lesion, what does this suggest about its dual role in memory (specifically in fear)

learning and storing conditioned fear response

What should be emphasised about the amygdala’s role in fear considering normal fear evoking stimuli still elicit fear responses

specific role in LEARNED fear responses

Using fMRI and skin conductance response when associating a visual cue with an electric shock, what did LaBar et al find about the amygdala in human fear conditioning (when it was active and what does this activity correlate with)

it was active during the learning process; its activation correlated with skin conductance response

Bechara et al found evidence (type of neuroscience evidence) of what between the amygdala and hippocampus

double dissociation

What do patients with amygdala damage show in fear conditioning tasks (one answer we have already learnt)

no conditioned skin conductance response, but they can recall the association and verbally describe it

What do patients with hippocampal damage (amnesia) show in fear conditioning tasks (consider the presence of a double dissociation as a hint for the answer)

a skin conductance response is present, but they cannot recall the association

What does the double dissociation between the amygdala and hippocampus demonstrate about their relative roles in fear conditioning

amygdala stores the conditioned fear response while the hippocampus stores the declarative memory of the association

What emotional function does bilateral amygdala damage impair

fear expression recognition

Morris et al used fMRI to measure brain activity in response to fearful faces vs happy faces – which brain areas were active for each condition

fearful associated with left amygdala activity and happy faces associated with activity in different brain areas

What are the two routes to the amygdala describe by Le Doux

fast and slow

What did Ohman and Soares find about subliminal emotional processing when they subliminally presented images of spides and snakes to participants with spider/snake phobias – what is the different in ppts behavioural and physiological responses

ppts did not report seeing the images but skin conductance responses were still measured

What does this response indicate

an emotional response without conscious awareness

What method did Tamietto et a use to measure amygdala activation, and what was the stimuli presented, in what group of patients

using fMRI, showed fearful facial expression to patients with visual cortex damage

what was the aim of Wang et al’s study using intracranial EEG (iEEG)

measure ERP responses in the amygdala between different facial expressions in different spatial frequency conditions in ppts without conscious emotional awareness

Complete the results of Wang et al’s study

LSF condition, no differences, fearful

What do these results suggest the existence of in the amygdala (no idea how this is suggested)

existence of a subcortical pathway specific for rapid fear detection

Amygdala activity leads to enhanced activity in other brain areas – name the cortex and the system it affects

visual cortex and the autonomic system (to generate fight or flight response)

Amygdala activity also enhances activity in these regions – can you define what these regions are responsible for (think what hypothalamus regulates and think orbito like our orbit)

preparing bodily responses and evaluating context

The amygdala is often assumed to only be involved in fear, but what other facial expressions did the amygdala respond to in Labuschagne et al’s fMRI emotional face-matching study

happy and angry faces

Labuschagne et al also measured connectivity patterns in the wider network, which two brain areas had the strongest functional connectivity (FFA and IFC) and in particular recognition for which emotion

fusiform face area and inferior frontal cortex, fear recognition

What are the two key conclusions about the amygdala’s role in emotion processing considering fear assumptions that we have just assessed

there are multiple brain areas involved in the fear circuit (amygdala not lone) and amygdala has a wider role in emotion processing (other emotions)

What brain area lesion causes Kluver-Bucy syndrome in monkeys – when objects lose their learned emotional values

bilateral amygdala lesion

What are 3 symptoms of Kluver-Bucy syndrome

tameness, emotional blunting and hyperreality (examining objects with mouth)

Thinking back to Capgras syndrome (also where objects have lost their learned emotional values), what is a proposed neurological model/explanation for this

disconnect between the amygdala (face recognition) and other parts of the limbic system (emotional processing)

Where is the insula located (somewhat similar to amygdala location)

underneath the temporal lobes

What is the emotional function of the insula

creating bodily feelings associated with emotions

Which two main emotions is the insula involved with

disgust and interoception

What 3 disgust experiences will increase insula activation

moral disgust, feeling disgusted or seeing someone else disgusted

What is interoception

monitoring the internal state of the body

What interoceptive signals are sent to the insula

signals from receptors in skin, muscles, and organs

What is the nature of this monitoring of signals?

can be conscious and unconscious

How does interposition relate to emotion

bodily changes play an important role in emotions

What emotion theory supports this – explain process

james-lange theory – stimulus -> bodily response -> conscious emotion

What are the 3 main areas of the brain’s reward circuit (hint

OFC, ACC and VS)

what is the role of these 3 main areas

to evaluate and respond to rewarding or emotionally significant events

The amygdala is an additional area in the reward circuit, doing what?

regulating

How do these areas work together

dopamine, detects, evaluates, monitors, adjusts

What altered reward processing is associated with these three main areas

emotional apathy

What is emotional apathy

deficits in using socioemotional rewards to guide behaviour

What is the specialisation and role of the ventral striatum (we’ve just looked at this)

specialised in emotions, detects the reward and motivates behaviour

What input does the ventral striatum receive

strong dopamine input

What elicited greater activity in the VS by Knutson et al, using fMRI

task with great monetary reward

What social aspect further increased VS activity within this scenario

when monetary reward was obtained via cooperation with another human compared to non-cooperation or computer

This is the task ppts were presented with, (1) what were the areas in the striatum correlated with and (2) when is activity greater

correlated with prediction errors for both types of rewards, activity is greater when the reward is better than expected

What was the nature of VS activity in autism during reward anticipation compared to typically developing (and for which types of rewards)

hypoactivation in both the left and right ventral striatum, for both social and monetary rewards

What was the nature of VS activity in autism during reward delivery (compared to typically developing)

hyper activation of the VS

How did the presence of ADHD traits affect these reward differences

reduced the gap between ASD and typically developing individuals

Did ppts with ADHD experience increased activation to cues predicting affiliative rewards or the delivery of affiliative rewards (and vice versa with decreased activation)

delivery of affiliative rewards

What does these findings mean for VS sensitivity in ADHD

hyposensitivty to reward-predicting cues in ADHD extends to affiliative (social), not just monetary ones

What is the role of the OFC (orbitofrontal cortex) in the reward circuit

computing the current value of a stimuli within the current context

What 3 scenarios is this role of the OFC important

social interactions, new learning and regulation of emotions

What regions of the OFC were active when chocolate was pleasant vs unpleasant

medial vs lateral regions

What social stimuli triggered lateral OFC activity

when ppts presented with an angry face instead of expected smile

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) lies above the corpus callosum and each region (blue and green) is implicated in executive functions and emotional processing, what are the two regions

dorsal region and ventral region

Can you remember the role of the ACC in the reward circuit

monitors outcomes and adjusts behaviour

How does the ACC carry out response evaluation

determines the cost and benefit of actions – will an action result in reward and punishment

If the ACC is involved in monitoring outcomes, what might its role be in bodily responses in emotion

processing bodily signals and responses (output of bodily responses)

What activity did a fMRI reveal about the ACC role in regulating feelings of pain (two types of pain stimuli)

activity in ACC for physically painful stimuli or watching somebody else in pain (social pain) – the ACC responds to the perception of pain in others

What cognitive process modulates the sensitivity of ACC responses to perception of pain in others

whether the other person is perceived to deserve the pain

Another type of social pain is explored, what is it and what ACC activity is correlated

being excluded socially, ACC activity correlates with subjective distress