emotion and motivation

Question 1

whats your behaviour influenced by

Answer 1

-internal state
-internal state depends on sensory input

Question 2

what are the basic internal states

Answer 2

-feeding
-fighting
-fleeing
-mating

Question 3

whats the basic structure of all homeostatic systems

Answer 3

-controlled variable -> sensor (compares change to the set point) -> error signal -> effector -> counteract perturbation
-set point -> sensor
-perturbation = something happens to change control variable

Question 4

what do GLP-1 agonists do

Answer 4

-help obese people lose weight by reducing appetite
-example is semaglutide

Question 5

what does the amygdala have an important role in

Answer 5

-fear
-Lesion in amygdala -> animals show less fear
-Amygdala required for fear conditioning
-animals learn to associate the tone with a shock after

Question 6

how does aggressive behaviour occur

Answer 6

-cerebral cortex -> amygdala -> hypothalamus -> PAG, ventral segmental area -> aggressive behaviour
-can go from amygdala -> PAG, tegmental area

Question 7

what does electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus cause

Answer 7

-aggression
-Medial hypothalamus- ‘Affective’ aggression
-Lateral hypothalamus- ‘Predatory’ aggression

-Sound = firing of a neuron in the ventromedial hypothalamus, ventrolateral subdivision (VMHvl)
-Artificial activation of VMHvl by optogenetics causes mouse to attack inanimate objects

Question 8

what does dopamine encode

Answer 8

-reward
-everytime the light goes on, the monkey gets a reward

Question 9

Dopamine reward: wanting vs. liking

Answer 9

-Rats with destroyed mesolimbic dopaminergic projections still seem to enjoy tasty food, but they lack motivation to seek food.
-> Dopamine drives ‘wanting’ or ‘motivation’ rather than pleasure per se
- not motivated to see the food -> dopamine therefore encodes ‘wanting’ not pleasure

Question 10

whats the The ‘somatic marker hypothesis’

Answer 10

-Embodied decision-making – emotions as ‘gut feelings’
-Control participants learn to avoid Deck B and show a stress response (increased skin conductance) when hovering over Deck B
-Patients with orbitofrontal lesions don’t avoid Deck B and don’t show anticipatory stress for Deck B (but they do when they get a penalty!)

Question 11

how are emotions made

Answer 11

-sensory input -> emotional experience -> physiological reaction - Common sense (‘folk’ theory)
-sensory input -> physiological reaction -> emotional experience - James-Lange theory (1880s)
-sensory input -> emotional experience and physiological reaction - Cannon-Bard theory (1920s)
-Cannon and Bard proposed emotional experience arises thalamus signaling to neocortex while the physiological reaction arises from thalamus signaling to hypothalamus
-sensory input -> physiological reaction -> cognitive interpretation -> emotional experience - Singer-Schachter theory
( can be sensory input -> cognitive interpretation
-Constructivist theories= the above but culture and experience -> cognitive interpretation