Emotion and Aggression What is the role of imitation in understanding emotions o Imitation provides empathy see an emotional expression imitate it feel it What areas are involved in emotion o The amygdala limbic system cortex and insular cortex What are some examples of the right hemisphere being more responsive to emotional stimuli o Damage to the right temporal cortex results in difficulty identifying other s emotional states o With an inactive right temporal cortex a person can recall events but not the emotions involved in that event How is the prefrontal involved in emotion o The prefrontal cortex becomes involved in emotions when it is activated during moral decisions provides outcome can predict feeling from outcome What is the general interaction between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala o Prefrontal cortex and amygdala control approach and avoidance How is serotonin involved depression o Serotonin is excitatory to prefrontal cortex less cortex more aggression or What types of emotion is the amygdala especially important for o Fear and aggression What kinds of stimuli activate the amygdala o Judging goodness or badness o Words that denote threatening situation o During fear conditioning o Looking at someone else whose expression is fear or anger o Looking at something frightening or someone looking fearful What are some behavioral cognitive consequences of damage to the amygdala o Can still feel emotion o Impairment in focusing on emotional details as opposed to other details o Impairment in processing info emotional when it s complicated subtle or Know the experiment about the resident and intruder hamster ambiguous o Original hamster o Introduces new hamster o Resident hamster attacks new hamster o Takes hamster away o Introduces new hamster o Resident hamster attacks new hamster but more quickly than last time What do twin studies and adoption studies tell us about the role of heredity in aggressive behaviors o Monozygotic dizygotic therefore environmental but o Adult crimes monozygotic dizygotic therefore genetic o Aggressive behaviors are most pronounced w criminal records and dysfunction in adoptive families What about when we look at certain genes like that for MAO o Low MOAA activity and childhood mistreatment leads to antisocial behavior What is the potential contribution of 1 smoking while pregnant 2 low serotonin turnover and 3 high testosterone to aggressive behavior o 1 Smoking while pregnant increases likelihood of son to be arrested for violent crimes o 2 Low serotonin increases probability of violent behavior someone with low serotonin turnover if already attempted suicide will most likely try to commit suicide again remember the suicide will be committed in a violent fashion o 3 High testosterone significantly increases aggression Is testosterone working by itself to alter aggressive behavior o No alcohol and testosterone together are known to increase aggressiveness o Balance between cortisol serotonin and testosterone Is testosterone important in males females or both o Testosterone is important in both males and females Is the role of testosterone due to organizational or activational effects of the hormone o It is both organizational and activational What are some aspects of a face that is important in recognizing the emotion it is expressing o Fear facing away from the person Directed is confusing o Anger directed toward the person Facing away is confusing What brain region is important in the expression of disgust o Insular cortex What is different about the normal brain compared to the brain of a psychopathic brain Why that region o Activated in an uncomfortable situation o No signs of conditional responses o Little brain activation What is the most common cause of aggression o Territory Learning and Memory What is an engram o A physical representation of a memory What were Lashley s critical mistakes in looking for the engram o Location doesn t matter the bigger the lesion the greater the impairment of memory o Believed all memories were the same o Believed memory is in discreet regions of the cortex What are implicit and explicit memory o Explicit memory Declarative memory Things you can talk about Remembering events episodic memory Knowing facts semantic memory o Implicit memory Skills and habits Emotional associations Conditional reflexes What brain regions are important for each o Implicit o Explicit Starium motor areas of cortex Amygdala Cerebellum Hippocampus Nearby cortical areas Medial diencephal memory o STM What are some differences between short term memory working memory and long term Small capacity Fades quickly unless rehearsed Once forgotten it is gone o LTM Infinite capacity Lasts indefinitely Could be forgotten and then later remembered with appropriate cues What brain region is important for working memory o Prefrontal cortex What were some of HM s impairments o Lost declarative memory and spatial memory What could HM still do o He still had procedural and working memory With regard to memory what are some functions of the hippocampus o Active during formation of memories and during recall o Consolidation of declarative explicit memory o Spatial memory Increased activity when doing spatial tasks Ex Imagining best route What other brain regions are important in learning and memory What type of learning o A synapse that increases in effectiveness because of simultaneous activity in pre do the brain regions subserve o Temporal lobe Damage causes semantic dementia o Cerebellum Conditioned responses o Prefrontal cortex Working memory What is a Hebbian synapse and post synaptic neurons What is LTP o Long Term Potentiation A burst of stimulation from axons resulting in potentiated strengthened synapses for minutes days or weeks What receptors are necessary o AMPA and NMDA receptors Understand cooperativity specificity and associativity in terms of LTP o Cooperativity Nearly simultaneous stimulation by two or more axons results in LTP Only active synapses become strengthened o Specificity o Associativity Pairing a weak input with a strong input How does classical conditioning probably depend on the associative nature of LTP o Classical conditioning requires the pairing of an unimportant stimuli with an important stimuli o Hebb rule The cellular basis of learning involves strengthening of a synapse that is repeatedly active when the post synaptic neuron fires associativity o Aversive stimuli and nonpainful but related stimuli
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