BIOPSYCHOLOGY 8eJohn P.J. Pinel
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17.1 Biopsychology of Emotion: Introduction
17.2 Fear, Defense, and Aggression
17.3 Neural Mechanisms of Fear Conditioning
17.4 Stress and Health
17.5 Brain Mechanisms of Human Emotion
TopicsTopics
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Biopsychology of Emotion: Introduction
• Phineus Gage• Why would a tamping iron
through the skull lead to dramatic changes in personality?
• Damage to the medical prefrontal lobes• Site of planning and emotion
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Darwin’s Theory of the Evolution of Emotional Expression
• Expressions of emotion evolve from behaviors that indicate what an animal is likely to do next
• If emotional signals are beneficial, they will evolve to more effectively communicate and may lose their original meaning
• Opposite messages are often signaled by opposite movements – “principle of antithesis”
• Threat displays, for example, are beneficial – intimidate victims without the costs and risks for fighting
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James-Lange• Stimulus triggers autonomic/skeletal
response which triggers emotion• Autonomic/skeletal response
necessary for emotionCannon-Bard
• Stimulus triggers autonomic/skeletal response and emotion
• Autonomic/skeletal response independent of emotion
Theories of Emotion
BOTH ARE WRONG
BOTH ARE WRONG
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FIGURE 17.3:Four ways of thinking about the relations among the perception of emotion-inducing stimuli, the autonomic and somatic responses to the stimuli, and the emotional experience.
Theories of Emotion
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Sham RageSham Rage
• Decorticated cats exhibit extreme and unfocused aggressive responses
• Hypothalamus must be intact • Perhaps hypothalamus is
needed for expression of aggression and cortex serves to inhibit and direct responses
• Decorticated cats exhibit extreme and unfocused aggressive responses
• Hypothalamus must be intact • Perhaps hypothalamus is
needed for expression of aggression and cortex serves to inhibit and direct responses
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Limbic System and Emotion
Papez proposed an emotional circuit (limbic system) that includes the hypothalamus
Papez proposed an emotional circuit (limbic system) that includes the hypothalamus
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Kluver-Bucy Syndrome
•Rare cerebral neurological disorder•Major symptoms – urge to put objects into mouth, memory loss, extreme sexual behavior, placidity, visual distractibility
•Results from bilateral damage to anterior temporal lobes
•First seen in monkeys, then other species (including humans)
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• Two important questions• Which patterns of ANS
activity are associated with specific emotions?
• Are ANS measures effective on polygraph (“lie detector”)?
• There is not a separate ANS profile for each emotion
motion and the Automatic Nervous System (ANS)
motion and the Automatic Nervous System (ANS)
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Polygraphy
• Lie detection is really emotion detection• Control-question technique
• Physiological response to a target question compared with response to control question
• Success rate in studies is about 80%• Guilty knowledge technique
• Merely ask a question that only the culprit would know the answer to
• Success rate in distinguishing guilty vs. innocent is 88% in one study
• Lie detection is really emotion detection• Control-question technique
• Physiological response to a target question compared with response to control question
• Success rate in studies is about 80%• Guilty knowledge technique
• Merely ask a question that only the culprit would know the answer to
• Success rate in distinguishing guilty vs. innocent is 88% in one study
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Emotions and Facial Expressions
• The meanings of facial expressions appear to be universal
• Six primary emotions
– Naturally occurring expressions are usually variations or combinations of the basic ones
• Facial feedback hypothesis – smiling makes you happier; facial muscles influence emotional experience
• Microexpressions – brief facial expressions reveal true feelings; may break through false ones
• Different muscles involved in fake and real smiles
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Fear, Defense, and Aggression
• Fear – emotional reaction to threat• Aggressive behaviors – designed to
threaten or harm• Defensive behaviors – designed to
protect from threat or harm (motivated by fear)
• Social aggression – unprovoked attacks on members of one’s own species to establish dominance
• Defensive attack – aggressive behavior, as when cornered
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Colony-intruder model of aggression and defense in rats• Study interaction between alpha
male of an established colony with a small male intruder
Observation of cats and mice• Cat “play” with prey is actually a
combination of attack and defense behaviors
Target-site concept – aggressive behaviors designed to attack specific sites on body, defensive to protect specific sites
Types of Aggressive and Defensive Behaviors
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Aggression and Testosterone (T)
• Nonprimates – T release around birth of male rats prepares them for T-activated social aggression at maturity
• T increases or has no effect on social aggression, depending on species; castration decreases or has no effect on social aggression in same species
• In humans, social aggression does not increase along with higher T levels at puberty
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Neural Mechanisms of Fear Conditioning
Fear conditioning• Pair a neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone) with
an aversive stimulus (e.g., a shock)• Present the tone later and the animal will
show a conditioned fear response– Usually a defensive behavior
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Amygdala and Fear Conditioning
• Lesions of the amygdala block fear conditioning
• The amygdala receives input from all sensory systems
–Appears to be responsible for adding emotional significance to another stimulus
–Amygdala projects to brainstem regions that control emotional behavior output
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Contextual Fear Conditioning and the Hippocampus
Pair an aversive stimulus with the context instead of with a discrete stimulus
• Hippocampus is linked to spatial memory
• Effect of bilateral hippocampal lesions on contextual fear conditioning
•Before training – prevents conditioning•Shortly after training – blocks retention of conditioning
Pair an aversive stimulus with the context instead of with a discrete stimulus
• Hippocampus is linked to spatial memory
• Effect of bilateral hippocampal lesions on contextual fear conditioning
•Before training – prevents conditioning•Shortly after training – blocks retention of conditioning
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Amygdala Complex and Fear Conditioning
In addition, conditioned fear is suppressed by the prefrontal cortex inhibiting the lateral amygdala
The hippocampus mediates conditioned fear learning byinforming the lateral amyg-
dala about the context of the fear-related event
Current synthesis of findings indicates that the lateral
amygdala is most critical in conditioned
fear
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• Stress – reaction to harm or threat• Stressors – stimuli that cause stress• Chronic psychological stress – most clearly
linked to ill health• In the short-term, stress is adaptive; in the
long-term, it is maladaptive
Stress and Health
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The Stress Response
• Stress triggers stress hormone: anterior-pituitary adrenal-cortex system (glucocorticoids, epinephrine, and norepinephrine) and cytokines (causing inflammation and fever)
• Selye neglected sympathetic nervous system
• Individual differences, such as attitude, affect the magnitude of the stress response
–Example: women awaiting surgery who were “certain” they did not have breast cancer had milder stress than others
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Animal Models of Stress
• Some early models used levels of stress that might not have a human equivalent
• Some more recent models use social stresses
• For example, subordination stress
• Some early models used levels of stress that might not have a human equivalent
• Some more recent models use social stresses
• For example, subordination stress
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Psychosomatic Disorders: The Case of Gastric Ulcers
•Gastric ulcers – lesions of stomach lining and duodenum
•More common in those who are stressed; readily created in the animal lab
•Ulcers are caused by a bacteria – stress appears to make the body vulnerable to this bacteria
•75% of healthy subjects have the bacteria
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Psychoneuroimmunology
The study of the interaction of psychological factors, the nervous system, and the immune system
Psychoneuroimmunology
The study of the interaction of psychological factors, the nervous system, and the immune system
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Immune System
Divisions of the mammalian immune system
Innate immune system
• First line of defense
• Attacks generic classes of pathogens
Adaptive immune system
• Targets specific pathogens identified by their antigens
• Has memory (the basis of effectiveness of vaccination)
• Cytokines activate lymphocytes (white blood cells)
Innate immune system
• First line of defense
• Attacks generic classes of pathogens
Adaptive immune system
• Targets specific pathogens identified by their antigens
• Has memory (the basis of effectiveness of vaccination)
• Cytokines activate lymphocytes (white blood cells)
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Two Adaptive Barriers to Infection
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How Does Stress Influence Immune Function?
• Effects of stress on immune function depends on the kind of stress
–Acute stressors improve immune function
–Chronic stressors impair immune function
• Many ways that stress can impact immune function
–Effects of stress can be good (adaptive and healthful), bad, or mixed
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Early Experience of Stress
• Stress of mistreatment early in life may cause brain and endocrine abnormalities later in life
• Rat pups handled by researchers had more adaptive stress response in adulthood (less circulating glucocorticoids following stress), probably due to less negative feedback from hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors
• A good example of epigenetic (“not of the genes”) transmission: fearful, poor-grooming mothers raise daughters who become fearful, poor-grooming mothers
• Stress of mistreatment early in life may cause brain and endocrine abnormalities later in life
• Rat pups handled by researchers had more adaptive stress response in adulthood (less circulating glucocorticoids following stress), probably due to less negative feedback from hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors
• A good example of epigenetic (“not of the genes”) transmission: fearful, poor-grooming mothers raise daughters who become fearful, poor-grooming mothers
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Stress and the Hippocampus
• Hippocampus has many glucocorticoid receptors
• Following stress:– Dendrites of pyramidal cells are
shorter and less branched– Adult neurogenesis of granule
cells reduced• Effects blocked with
adrenalectomy; produced with corticosteroids
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Brain Mechanisms of Human Emotion: Cognitive Neuroscience
Three main points have advanced the understanding of brain mechanisms of emotion:
• Brain activity associated with each human emotion is diffuse
• There is usually motor and sensory regional activity along with an emotional response
• Brain activity for experienced, imagined, or observed emotion is similar
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• Early theories of emotion were general theories (e.g., limbic system theory – limbic system plays a role in all emotions)
• Recent discoveries: • From brain imaging, amygdala
activity is correlated with fear (especially social fear) and certain other negative emotions
• Urbach-Wiethe disease (calcification of amygdala) causes loss of facial expression and loss of recognition of fear
Amygdala in Human Emotion
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Medial Prefrontal Lobes and Human Emotion
• Includes medial portions of the orbitofrontal cortex and cingulate cortex
• Site of emotion-cognitive interaction, especially cognitive suppression of emotional reactions
• Possible roles in comparison of outcome and expectancy, guiding behavior based on recent experience, response to social rejection
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• Two theories:
• Right-hemisphere model – the right hemisphere is dominant for all aspects of emotion
• Valence model – the right hemisphere specializes in negative emotions
• Both theories are probably too general• Strong evidence for lateralization for
particular structures and emotions• Males may be more lateralized than
females
Lateralization of Emotion
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Individual Differences in the Neural Mechanisms of Emotion
• Most (but not all) of nine patients with bilateral amygdalar lesions had difficulty recognizing fear in facial expressions (Adolphs and colleagues, 2003)
• Personality differences: both high extraversion and high neuroticism healthy subjects showed higher amygdalar activity while viewing fearful faces; only extraverts showed higher amygdalar activity while viewing happy faces (Canli and colleagues, 2002)
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Watch: Gender Differences in StressVulnerability
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Acknowledgments
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template lightning ©istockphoto.com/Soubrette
template background texture ©istockphoto.com/Hedda Gjerpen
Ch17 image Fear white knuckles ©istockphoto.com/Donald Macalister
3 book ©istockphoto.com/Carmen Martínez Banús
4 Man's head ©istockphoto.com/Nicolas Hansen
5, 33 left profile talking ©istockphoto.com/Digital Savant LLC
5, 33 right profile talking ©istockphoto.com/See Hear Media, Inc.
6 Figure 17.3 Pinel 8e, p. 445
7, 18, 29 brain ©istockphoto.com/Stephen Kirklys
8 Figure 17.4 Pinel 8e, p. 446
9, 16 neuron ©istockphoto.com/ktsimage
10 person holding up baby ©istockphoto.com/Barbara Sauder
11 head - woman ©istockphoto.com/Angel Herrero de Frutos
12, 34 variety of facial expressions ©istockphoto.com/ZoneCreative
13 barking dog ©iStockphoto.com/Yuriy Zelenenkyy
14 silhouettes - hate fighting TrapdoorMedia
15 punch through wall ©istockphoto.com/Sami Suni
17 Figure 17.9 Pinel 8e, p. 453
20 person reading books ©iStockphoto.com/Francesco Ridolfi
21 Figure 17.10 Pinel 8e, p. 455
22 white rat ©iStockphoto.com/Elena Butinova
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Acknowledgments
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22 blue sky & clouds ©istockphoto.com/kertlis
23 medical clipboard ©istockphoto.com/Anastasia Pelikh
24 tabletop of stationery ©istockphoto.com/Stuart Burford
25 laughing ©istockphoto.com/Stratesigns, Inc.
26 Figure 17.2 Pinel 8e, p. 458
27 college age person coughing ©istockphoto.com/Sharon Barnes Photography
28 hand holding rat ©iStockphoto.com/sidsnapper
30 person thinking ©istockphoto.com/akurtz
31 toddler listening to adult speak ©istockphoto.com/Jani Bryson Studios, Inc.
32 crowd ©istockphoto.com/adisa
35 laptop ©istockphoto.com/CostinT
35 table and wall ©istockphoto.com/David Clark
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