Emotion and the brain

Question 1

basic emotions

Answer 1

behavioural, autonomic, hormonal are emotional responses
emotion: short, intense, target
mood: long, background, no target
Ekman
facial expressions into cognitive affective states
7 basic emotions are universal and do not need to be learnt

Question 2

are emotions universal?

Answer 2

Gendron et al: Himba tribe
- sort faces into piles with no labels
- happy and fear recognised
- no sadness, disgust or anger

X fail to describe richness or human emotional experience
X 27 categories
X failed replication using free labelling
X language influences emotion

Question 3

Ekman’s sketchy past

Answer 3

• funded by DARPA > developing self guided bullets
• used for deception detection
• developed tool for lie detection - facial muscles difficult to control
• METT are inconsistent in testing

Question 4

2 extreme positions

Answer 4

complete specialisation vs complete dispersion
Papez - set of brain areas involved in processing all emotions
BUT… not all areas in circuit play a major role in emotion processing and areas not in the circuit do

emerging view of emotions are dynamic, distributed representations in brain networks
BUT… can be classify emotional states?
if not random, should be identifiable

Question 5

animal research

Answer 5

• no neuroimaging method has high spatial resolution, temporal resolution and whole brain coverage
• fine grained functional, anatomical, understanding possible in theory
• animal research fills gaps

Question 6

fear: conditioning and extinction

Answer 6

• only shock: UR
• tone and shock: conditioning
• tone: CS
• shock - tone: CR

fear brain areas = amygdala

Question 7

extinction - mice

Answer 7

CS presented without aversive stimulus, CR disappears
BUT…
extinction not same as forgetting
CS and CR not erased

Question 8

Curzon - 3 areas

Answer 8

amygdala - fear
hippocampus - CS/ CR
PFC - attention

Question 9

emotion regulation - cognitive reappraisal

Answer 9

• anterior insula
• anterior angulate cortex
• PFC

Question 10

voluntary control over amygdala activation

Answer 10

Oschner et al
- reappraise negative images
- decrease amygdala
- increase PFC
Vergalito et al
- brain stimulation - regulate negative effect in danger
- introceptive - arousal
- extroceptive - environmental changes

anxiety, depression, impulsivity, aggression
public speaking
Brooks - reappraise anxiety as excitement