Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
EMOTION
This course outline is designed to provide you with a study guide. Use the lecture, book, and other
resources to expand on its contents.
OUTLINE TOPICS
Objectives Anatomy Connections LINKS TERMS QUIZ RETURN
Lesson Objectives
1. Trace the pathways for limbic system interconnections that are responsible for emotionality.
2. What role does the hypothalamus play in emotion?
3. Outline Papez circuit and discuss his understanding of its function.
4. Explain the temporal lobe syndrome
5. Explain the effects of amygdaloid lesions and discuss its function.
6. Describe the function of the amygdala in the regulation of emotional behavior.
7. Describe what happens with lesions in the cingulate gyrus or hippocampus.
8. What fibers are severed with a prefrontal lobotomy, and what are the behavioral effects?
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Difficult to define emotion and motivation in scientifically acceptable manner.
Criteria--skeletal or autonomic response.
Theories--many don't distinguish between subjective experience and behavior.
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Anatomy of Emotion
Hypothalamus -- Integration
Rage follows Dorsomedial nucleus stimulation
Partially integrated
Anterior and lateral hypothalamus, preoptic, septum, posterior hypothalamus are distinct
systems--mediate flight, fight, attack (no pleasure)
Limbic System -- Controlling mechanisms (unchanged from brain of lower animals)
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Amygdala
Limbic system designed to frustrate experimental analysis
Fibers and Passage
Temporal lobe syndrome (Kluver&Bucy (37)
Compulsive oral response
Loss of fear, aggressiveness
Hypersexuality, increased activity
Conflicting results with lesion
Tame or wild
Territory (environment) is important factor (can't detect and react as at home)
Retard avoidance conditioning
Hippocampus
Lesion--perseveration
Repetitive running, poor discrimination, and activity
Passive-avoidance deficit
Facilitate or impair active avoidance; depends on particular task
Isaacson (1961) greater resistance to extinction
Memory: Pribram--Penfield
Lesion control
Septum
Lesion--emotional hypersensitivity (disappears with handling)
Impaired passive avoidance (not appetitive)
Increased exploration (errors) and exaggerated startle response
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Olfactory projection fields (pyriform)
Cingulate gyrus
Clinical--lesion for anxiety
Transient increase in emotionality but less response to stress.
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Thalamus
Clinical data - major area for emotion
Decortication sham rage not influenced by thalamic presence (removed by posterior
hypothalamus)
Role difficult to assess because of many nuclei.
Cortex -- Integration, direction
Removal--sham rage (stimulus bound) to neutral stimuli
Mediates stimuli and directs attack.
Required for pleasure.
Temporal Lobe
Frontal Lobe
Projections from hypothalamus
Lesion--impair delayed response.
Lobotomy--remove anxiety (intellectual deficit)
More restricted--good results
Orbital gyri--for chronic depression
Brain Stem
Regulates individual responses that contribute to complete emotional reaction.
Rage to stimulation of higher areas doesn't occur after brainstem lesion.
Activation in emotion.
Connections with posterior hypothalamus.
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Anatomical Connections
Septum
Stria Terminalis
Amygdala
Papez Circuit
Hippocampus
Fornix
Mammillary Bodies (Posterior hypothalamus)
Mammalothalamic tract
Anterior Thalamic Nuclei - DTPS
Cingulate Gyrus (Neocortex)
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Presbiculum -- connects with Hippocampus
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Terms to Know
Amygdala Temporal lobe syndrome Lobotomy
Hippocampus passive avoidance Limbic system
Fornix perseveration orbital gyri
Septum Cingulate Gyrus Mammilary Bodies
Posterior hypothalamus Presubiculum Sham rage
Lesson Objectives - Theories of Emotion
1. Discuss problems with the study of theories of emotion.
2. Describe the similarities and differences between James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, & Shacter &
Singer's theories of emotion.
3. Discuss Schacter & Singer's theory of emotion.
4. Explain how emotion is a crucial mechanism for survival.
5. Explain the relationship of emotion and attention.
6. Describe the differential effects of RF vs. PH lesions and discuss the implications regarding
emotional behavior.
7. Explain what P.T. Young meant by three properties of stimuli.
8. Describe the role of the posterior hypothalamus in emotion.
9. Describe how Routtenberg's 2 arousal system and Kawamuar etal, 1961 research aided in our
understanding of emotion.
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General Problems with Theories
The term emotion refers to behavior and feelings.
Feelings are subjective and difficult to measure empirically.
Components of same behavior taken as an indicant of emotion seen in non-emotional context.
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Early Theories of Emotion
James-Lange Theory
James proposed that bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and our
feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion.
Lange's modification indicated that vasomotor changes are the emotions
Both viewed emotion as the perception of a response by the nervous system.
Both suggest that the underlying processes perceived as emotions are autonomic.
Cannon-Bard Theory
Objections to James-Lange
Isolating the viscera does not impair emotion
Viscera respond to many non-emotional states (digestion)
Viscera are insensitive, slow to respond
Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) activity - regarded as preparatory for struggle
Epinephrine cooperates with the SNS to:
Free glycogen from liver for muscles.
Aid in converting lactic acid to glucose by increasing respiration.
Redistribute blood to needed areas.
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Cannon-Bard Thalamic Theory
Viewed emotions as the result of concurrent brain stem & cortical events
Cortex inhibits thalamus
Emotion-producing stimuli remove inhibition
Impulses released to ANS result in emotional behavior
Lindsley's Arousal Theory
Both visceral and somatic impulses converge on the reticular formation
Impulses integrated and projected to the hypothalamus
SNS activity
Also operate through diffuse thalamic projection system on cortex
Emotion falls on arousal continuum
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Schacter and Singer's Theory
Emotional feelings and behavior are the products of information from 2 systems
Internal state - hypothalamus and limbic system
External environment (context in which the internal state occurs)
Humans given adrenaline may report that they feel or behave as if they are more hostile or elated
(depending upon the environment stimuli)
Effects of adrenaline on 3 groups: informed, uninformed, misinformed
Informed group did not change significantly in hostile or pleasant environment
Other two groups did change.
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Conclusion:
Complexity of emotionality is due to the fact that many different environmental stimuli may be
influencing the behavior.
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Related Research
Routtenberg (1968) 2-arousal systems:
Reticular formation - cortical desynchronization; provides organization of cortex for response.
Limbic system - provides control of response through incentive-related stimuli.
Kawamura, Nakamura, & Tokizane (1961).
Lesions between reticular formation and DTPS abolish cortical desynchronization but leave
limbic system responsive.
Lesions in posterior thalamus don't influence cortical desynchronization but abolish the limbic
system's response to stimuli.
The limbic system and cortical systems are separate systems that interconnect at brainstem
level.
Emotion Vs Sensation
P.T. Young states that stimuli have 3 properties:
Sensory - cortex
Activating - reticular formation
Hedonic - limbic system (positive or negative reinforcing stimuli)
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Primary - certain stimuli (e.g., pain) produce avoidance behaviors which are negatively
reinforcing.
Other stimuli remove aversive stimuli and produce approach behavior (negative
reinforcement).
Many of the stimuli to which we respond have acquired positively or negatively reinforcing
properties by virtue of the fact that they have been paired with primary reinforcing stimuli.
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Revised Theory of Emotion
Emotion serves two functions:
Bring autonomic nervous system into play (SNS) to prepare the organism to cope with a
threatening object or situation.
This SNS activity, beyond certain limits, is aversive; therefore, its presence "motivates" an
organism to make a response to decrease it.
Emotion is a crucial mechanism for survival: If prepared to cope with stimuli and respond, are
more likely to survive and reproduce.
An emotional response is an adaptive response to stimuli in the environment.
Emotional responses only begin to be maladaptive when the environment becomes very
complex (e.g. man).
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Emotion and Attention
Stimuli reach all levels of the nervous system, including the cortex, regardless of the state of organism
(from sleep to wakefulness).
There are some stimuli which reach cortex and can't be interpreted.
When incongruent, novel, or partial information is coded, the following result is produced:
Cortex feeds back to reticular formation, increasing cortical desynchronization
This information is transferred from the cortex - RF - to the posterior hypothalamus and
activates the limbic system
The limbic system activates the SNS & produces emotional behavior.
Connection between the limbic system and the cortex is crucial for conditioning.
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Physiological Psychology, 21. EMOTION
Emotional Behavior
Emotional behavior refers to the response of the SNS and the overt behavioral response occurring
because of these stimuli.
Both the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and overt behavioral responses generally occur in
response to some stimulus (external or internal)
External - any environmental stimulus
Internal - stimulus resulting from changes within an organism (food deficit)
Emotional behavior is a response to internal stimuli (SNS and limbic system activity) and
external stimuli (Schacter and Singer).
The complexity encountered in the study of emotional behavior is due solely to the infinite number of
environmental stimuli which may be involved.
Emotional Disorders
Neuroses result from the inability of the organism to suppress Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)
activity. Can be accomplished by:
Drugs to reduce SNS, ascending reticular influence and behavioral arousal
Conditioning (changing the perception of environmental stimuli)
Removing subject from environment producing this behavior
Psychoses - probably, in part, due to biochemical disturbance and conditioning.
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Terms to Know
Epinephrine SNS Lindsley's arousal theory
James-Lange Theory P.T.Young Schacter and Singer Theory
Routten berg's 2 arousal
Cannon-Bard Theory Posterior hypothalamus
system
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