Notes from the lecture of prof. Debby Van Dam regarding emotional responses. It describes the role of brain, amygdala, pre -frontal cortex in emotional expression. How emotions are understood and translated in the brain and many more.
An emotional response consists of three types of components:
- Behavioural
- Autonomic
- Hormonal
Behavioural component -> consists of muscular movements that are appropriate
to the situation that elicits them. For example, a dog defending its territory
against an intruder = the dog adopts aggressive posture, growls, and shows its
teeth. However, it varies between the species. What looks like a smile does not
represent the same underlying emotion in all species:
- A chimp – has a smile that looks like human (showing all teeth) = sign of
negative emotion
- A chimps smile = top teeth covered! Whereas in humans lower teeth are
covered while smiling and all teeth are showing when angry.
Autonomic component -> it facilitates the behaviours and provide quick
mobilization of energy for vigorous movement. In this example the activity of
the sympathetic branch increases while that of the parasympathetic branch
decreases. As a consequence, the animal’s heart rate increases, vasodilation
,occurs, and the blood vessels move the circulation from the digestive organs
towards muscles => in other words Flight or Fight response is triggered.
Hormonal component -> hormonal responses reinforce the autonomic responses.
The hormones secreted by adrenal medulla – epinephrine and norepinephrine.
These hormones further increase blood flow to the muscles and causes nutrients
stored in muscles to be converted into glucose.
, Feeling as 4th factor -> it is believed that in humans there is a 4th factor present
= feeling associated with an emotional response. We know about that because we
are able to communicate this to each other. Factor 1-3 can be measured and
observed also in non-humans but not the 4th factor. There is an example of a
gorilla named Koko which have learned many hand signs – but it is still a debate
whether it was indeed induced or because she responded with hand signs due to
operant conditioning:
- Clever Hans effect – clever Hans was a horse that was claimed to have
performed arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. It was later explained
by a simple behavioural responses to subtle cues provided by his handler.
Clever Hans effect refers to the danger of unintentional cueing of the
desired behaviour by the questioner if experiments are not carefully
designed.
NEUROANATOMY OF EMOTIONS + LIMBIC SYSTEM
Decorticate Rage
Decorticate rage refers to rage induced emotion due to removal of cortex in
dogs. These dogs showed much more aggressive behaviour in response to routine
handling. It was then concluded that cerebral cortex is responsible for inhibition
of these emotional responses.
Papez Circuit
Papez circuit is already known for its function in memory. Papez noticed that
heightened aggression in cats with rabies correlated with the damage to the
hippocampus. Based on this and other human studies he proposed the subcortical
circuit. The circuit connects the hypothalamus and the cortex and acts as the
emotional system of the brain.
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