Neuroscience of Social Behavior and Emotional Disorders (NSBED) - Lectures (Universiteit Utrecht)
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When talking about emotions, it’s important to not only talk about electrical connections, but also chemical connections: neurotransmitters.
These cause synaptic transmissions.
Neurotransmitters relating strongly to emotion:
These are neuromodulators: made in the brainstem and then transported to other parts in the brain, where they are released and influence the synaptic transmissions (G&G).
Neuropeptides are a different type of neuromodulators. Are produced in the pituitary gland, based on signaling from the hypothalamus. So: hypothalamus > pituitary > peptide > emotion:
Steroid hormones are also neuromodulators. Hypothalamus > pituitary gland sends precursors > body > hormones > emotion.
Cognition is in the brain, and emotion in the body.
The hypothalamus directly coordinates the autonomous nervous system (ANS; parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system).
The autonomous nervous system is part of the reptilian complex (approach / avoidance system. Behavior based on reactivity.
The paleomammalian complex/limbic system contains the:
Behavior is based on attention and conditioning.
The neommalian complex/neocortex: behavior based on subjective / affective experience, social interaction and ratio.
Motivation: states in which rewards are sought and punishers are avoided (approach / avoidance (action based))
Emotion: states associated with stimuli that are rewarding and punishing (liking / disliking (subjective)):
We have the physical ‘arousal’ caused by the ANS, and we have the mental experience that comes with it.
Cognitive empathy: our ability to experience what someone else is experiencing.
Basic emotions can be looked at through an evolutionary perspective.
Sad, happy, disgust, surprised, anger and fear are thought to be universal emotions, but there is debate about whether this is driven by western emotion labels.
But different research suggests that fear and happy may be the actual basic emotions.
So combining the theories of basic emotions and evolution, we consider the three basic emotions to be:
These are all important for survival.
The basic social emotions are:
These are also a product of approach / avoidance motivation.
The amygdala consists of the BLA (cortical-like part) and the CeA (striatal-like part).
LeDoux introduced a low and a high route. The high route is the normal route (see picture). The low route is directly from the thalamus to the amygdala (pre-conciously).
Urbach-Wiethe patients have no fear recognition because they have no eye gaze (and have a damaged amygdala). But this is only the case if there is full amygdala damage.
Central-medial amygdala: fear expression part
Basolateral amygdala: fear regulation part
The basolateral amygdala has been shown to be essential for threat condition, and also important for reward learning (Pavlov).
The amygdala activates irrespective of whether positive/negative.
Amygdala and threat; it manages:
But it is also important for reward and relevant events in general!
The amygdala provides limbic control over motivational drives
The insula and disgust
Insula damage in humans impairs disgust recognition in faces and voices, but not other types of emotion. But it’s also important for taste and pain perception and bodily perception.
The insula is the main node of the salience network activates in response to any relevant stimulus.
The fear system (amygdala) looks outward for threat and emotional salience.
The insula looks inward for threat and emotional salience.
Involved structures:
Midbrain/brainstem
Striatum
Cortex
Midbrain and striatum
The dorsal striatum is important for the expression of motivated behavior (habit formation, reward-driven motor behavior. Because of the lack of dopamine from the SN in Parkinson’s disease, it causes the motor problems.
The ventral striatum (nucleus accumbens) is important for reward experience (anticipation and prediction).
So:
Dorsal striatum: reward seeking / habit formation
Nucleus Accumbens: reward prediction / anticipation
SN & VTA: dopamine projections
Orbitofrontal cortex
Anterior cingulate cortex
Emotions and decision making
Emotional decision making is intuitive and fast, and prone to error.
Rational decision making is calculated, slower and more likely to be correct.
Somatic marker theory: a theory on how emotions can improve decision making.
Problem > (Solutions and related arousal) > decision.
We learn association thanks to somatic signals (automatically driven by emotional processing).
After vmPFC damage, people make more rational decisions.
So:
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In this bundle you can find the lecture notes from the course 'Neuroscience of Social Behavior and Emotional Disorders' by Utrecht University. Good luck studying!
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