Stress Emotional Behaviors and Fight or Flight Most of us assume that if we see an ax murderer come towards us we ll run because we re afraid However according to the James Lange theory of emotion we re actually afraid because we re running Their idea was that you get an appraisal of the situation a cognitive appraisal that occurs on the subconscious level immediately one gets the action and then one gets the emotion So really we re not running because we re afraid we re afraid because we re running There s some evidence for this theory but there s some evidence against it There are a couple of areas in the cortex that are important for experiencing emotion Frontal and temporal lobes are important As far as completely localizing emotions there s only one only one emotion can be localized to a particular part of the brain it s disgust and it s localized to the insular cortex There may or may not be hemispheric differences in emotion but this hasn t been talked about a lot Author argues that there s more left hemisphere activity if one is happy or angry more right hemisphere activity if one is afraid or disgusted By far the most vigorous behavior all species including humans exhibit are attack and escape behaviors The phrase flight or flight comes from these behaviors These behaviors and the corresponding negative emotions anger or fear are of great interest to psychologists It is the case that monozygotic twins resemble each other more closely than do dizygotic twins in relation to violent behaviors And adopted children seem to more closely mirror their biological parents violent behaviors than their adoptive parents violent behavior There does seem to be an interaction with the environment More likely to be violent find friends who think the same Particular gene sequence had a particularly crappy childhood one is more likely to be violent as an adult The heritability factor is there and is probably moderate to mixed As far as brain areas are concerned the amygdala is involved The amygdala is the part of the brain that is important for primed behaviors The amygdala is in the temporal lobe Activation of the amygdala will cause extreme anger The amygdala is associated with the virus rabies in animals There is a real correlation between testosterone and aggression This is weak but it s still there In general men fight more than women they get arrested for more violent crimes they fight for no apparent reason more than females It s directly correlated to testosterone levels Ages 15 to 25 are the worst and that s when testosterone levels are high Serotonin is particularly important for aggression In humans low serotonin turnover has been correlated both with violent crimes and violent suicides It s very likely that normal levels of serotonin can decrease violent impulses Serotonin levels vary in individuals about 10 per year Spring serotonin is low correlation between spring and suicide numbers study in Belgium Active transport system that tryptophan needs to get to the brain Tryptophan is something we get in our diets This gets into the brain with phenylalanine which uses the same transportation system Diets that are high in phenylalanine reduce the amount of tryptophan that is available to the brain If there s a competition phenylalanine will win Serotonin needs tryptophan Can diet influence how one acts Epidemiologists have looked at this but it s difficult to determine Depression is linked to low levels of serotonin Depressed people aren t usually violent but one needs to be worried about violent suicides When one is actively aggressive one sees more serotonin release in the brain So the exact relation of serotonin and aggression is unclear Fear has a defined time You re afraid of the axe murderer that is chasing you But if the murderer goes away you re no longer afraid Anxiety doesn t go away The amygdala is important in fear and anxiety The amygdala can actually discern fearful stimuli before one is cognitively aware of it There is a genetic disorder called Urbach Wiethe in which the amygdala breaks away and these individuals have a difficult time recognizing emotions in others particularly fear Important neurotransmitter involved in fear and anxiety CCK is important GABA is also important In the amygdala CCK is excitatory GABA is inhibitory If one injects CCK into the amygdala one will get outright panic if one injects GABA antagonist blocking GABA same reaction Barbiturates were easy to overdose on Ed 50 effective dose effective in 50 of the population Ld 50 is dose lethal to 50 of the population For barbiturates ed 50 and ld 50 are very close so it s easy to overdose Led to production of benzodiazepines which are much less dangerous than the barbiturates These are prescribed in the case of anxiety disorders These drugs work at the GABAa receptor sites These drugs are sedative hypnotics Alcohol is the same works on same receptors They allow GABA to bind more easily to a receptor site It allows more chloride into the cell hyperpolarizing the cell making it less likely to fire So one has these cells in the amygdala that are less likely to fire This decreases anxiety because the site is less active There are four binding sites in GABAa GABA binds to one benzos bind to the other three They will twist the fourth binding site making it easier for GABA to bind These drugs are known as allosteric modulators because of this Any of these anti anxiety meds have tons of side effects When prescribed they make one very sleepy Sometimes prescribed for people with sleep disorders Also relax muscles Work fairly well in 70 80 of patients We make a class of compounds called the endozipenes Bind to same receptors as the benzodiazepines bind to The endozipines don t reduce anxiety they produce it Evolutionarily speaking this is probably a good thing There are many different anxiety disorders like GAD There are also panic disorder OCD etc The meds are different depending on disorder Depression and anxiety commonly coexist So depending on what person is diagnosed with they may be prescribed beta blockers Memory one has can be altered There is a particular drug that is a beta blocker that is being used in experimental trials to help people with PTSD PTSD occurs because someone has a severe reaction to a particular event The therapy entails the drug being administered in a safe place and the person is asked to remember the event The idea is for the person to recall the event in a much safer place and