1. Emotion and Health Emotion and the Nervous System
CHAPTER 8
Emotion
and Health
Emotion and the Nervous System

2. Emotion and the Nervous System
an increase or decrease in physiological activity
accompanied by feelings that are characteristic of the emotion
often accompanied by a characteristic behavior or facial expression.
Emotions are important
Signal to others our impending behavior
Give clues to our inner physiological activity
Communication regarding others’ behavior

3. Emotion and the Nervous System
Autonomic and Muscular Involvement:
Sympathetic nervous system: remember, activates arousal
Cortisol: hormone released from adrenal gland when body is “stressed”
Muscle activation: external expression of emotion
Fleeing, aggression, even hiding
But more subtle as well: facial changes, body language

4. Where do emotions come from?
Changes in autonomic nervous system = 1 form of emotion
Sympathetic nervous system arousal
Parasympathetic nervous system arousal
James-Lange theory:
Emotions are the result of action
Emotions = perception of own responses to stimuli
Results from the physiological arousal that precedes the emotion
Different emotions = result of different patterns of arousal.
Schachter and Singer’s cognitive theory: 2-factor theory
Physiological arousal contributes only to the emotion’s intensity
Identity of the emotion based on cognitive assessment of the situation.

5. Figure 8.2 Comparison of the James-Lange and the Schachter-Singer cognitive theories of emotion

6. What do the data say?
Physiological feedback adds intensity to motivation necessary for adaptive behavior.
Assessment and identification of an emotion allows us to
Draw on our base knowledge and experience:
Plan and execute a response.
Different patterns of physical arousal during emotion have an adaptive function
Not just for identifying our emotions
May help select appropriate response.
Emotion =major key to our survival and success.

7. Social cues elicit emotions
Schachter and Singer (1962)
Gave epinephrine injections to subjects
Placed in room with confederate
Several conditions: Behavior of confederate
If confederate was giddy and happy, so was subject
If confederate was angry, so was subject
BUT: Subjects attributed emotion to the injection of ephedrine, not the model
Data suggests arousal not necessary condition
Appropriate social modeling or label can substitute for arousal

8. Social cues elicit emotions
Many other studies support this role of social referencing and learning as cues for emotion
Arousal is an important component
As social creatures, social cues may be equally important
Infants and small children are great examples for this social referencing:
Child falls down
Looks at parent for parent’s reaction
IF parent acts upset, child cries and acts hurt
IF parent laughs, redirects, child has little emotional reaction

9. Social cues elicit emotions

10. Mirror neurons Mirror neurons: Neurons that
respond both when WE engage in a specific act
AND while observing the same act in others
Called mirror neurons because they “mirror” the neural circuits elicited when we behave when we SEE someone else behave in a similar way
May be limited or absent in disorders such as autism
Many people with autism have difficulty “understanding” the emotions of others
May be that they lack mirror neuron activity; thus they are unable to interpret the emotion in others

11. Innate Emotions? Ekman: work on facial expressions
Used an isolated culture that had little contact with other cultures
presented novel emotional stimuli (facial images)
Could assess whether learned or innate
Showed that contrary to the belief of some anthropologists some facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined
Rather are universal emotions across human cultures and thus biological in origin.

12. Emotion Classification
Devised a list of basic emotions
cross-cultural research
Fore tribesmen of Papua New Guinea.
Observed that members of an isolated culture could
Reliably identify the expressions of emotion in photographs of people
Even from cultures with which not yet familiar.
E.g., Fore tribesmen could also ascribe facial expressions to descriptions of situations.
On this evidence: concluded that expressions associated with some emotions were basic or biologically universal to all humans.

13. 1 2 3 6 4 5 Innate Emotions Ekman (1972) Which number is: Happiness
Anger
Surprise
Disgust
Sadness
Fear 1 2 3 6 4 5

14. Additional (probably) innate Emotions
Amusement
Contempt
Contentment
Embarrassment
Excitement
Guilt
Pride in achievement
Relief
Satisfaction
Sensory pleasure
Shame

15. Additional probably innate Emotions
Question becomes: From where in the brain do these emotions arise?
Is there a typical location or brain process used for:
Creating these emotions?
Identifying these emotions?
Do the facial features arise from the emotion or do emotions arise from facial features?

16. Emotion and the limbic System
Late 1930s and 40s: James Papez and others
proposed that emotions originated in the limbic system
Limbic system = network of structures arranged around the upper brain stem (remember)
Called this the Papez circuit:
Hippocampus to fornix to anterior thalamus to cingulate cortex (prefrontal) and back to hippocampus

17. Emotion and the limbic System
Limbic system = HIGHLY complex system
Looping interconnections
Highly interrelated and redundant structures
This focus on limbic system may be oversimplification of emotion
Emotion involves structures at all levels of the brain
Other important areas include
Sensory areas
Prefrontal areas
Even the brain stem.

18. Emotion and the limbic System
Limbic system connections to other areas are critical:
Up to Prefrontal areas: thinking about emotions
Down to Hypothalamus: producing actions/behaviors
Mesolimbic pathway: connects all these areas

19. Emotion and the limbic System

20. Other important brain areas Hypothalamus: Septal area:
Primary behavioral control over the autonomic nervous system
Stimulation elicits general autonomic arousal
Stimulation produces a variety of emotional expression: fear, rage, pleasure depending on where stimulate (remember the 4 F’s)
Septal area:
Stimulation here produces a sense of pleasure,
Feeling from stimulation is accompanied by sexual fantasies and arousal.
High in serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins

21. Other important brain areas Insular cortex and basal ganglia:
Amygdala:
Stimulation produces sense of fear
Stimulation elicits fear, aggression response patterns in animals
Defensive aggression
Predatory aggression
Territorial aggression
Maternal aggression
Insular cortex and basal ganglia:
Appear to modulate feeling of disgust
Individuals with Huntington’s and OCD have damage here

22. Important cortical structures in Emotion
Anterior cingulate cortex
Part of the cingulate gyrus
Important for attention, cognitive processing
Possibly consciousness, as well as emotion.
Anterior cingulate cortex appears to
Combine emotional, attentional, and bodily information
Brings about conscious emotional experience.
Right hemisphere ACC tends to be larger in individuals with high scores on harm avoidance
Linked to worrying about impending events, fear of uncertainty, shyness in social situations

23. The amygdala
Amygdala
Small limbic system structure
You have two: One located in each temporal lobe
Primarily involved in negative emotions.
Participates in memory formation involving emotion
Although involved in other emotions, role in fear and anxiety most thoroughly researched.
Fear is an emotional reaction to a specific immediate threat.
Anxiety is an apprehension about a future, and often uncertain, event.

24. Figure 8.10 Activation of the amygdala while viewing fearful faces
(a–c) Activation in the amygdala (yellow and red area) is seen from different orientations during viewing of pictures 0f faces depicting fear. (d) Average amounts of blood flow measured by the PET scan in the amygdala while the individual viewed happy faces and fearful faces.
Figure Activation of the amygdala while viewing fearful faces
(a–c) Activation in the amygdala (yellow and red area) is seen from different orientations during viewing of pictures of faces depicting fear. (d) Average amounts of blood flow measured by the PET scan in the amygdala while the individual viewed happy faces and fearful faces.

25. Emotion center in brain
Prefrontal cortex
Necessary for making judgments about behavior and its consequences.
Damage to this area later in life show an understanding of moral and social rules in hypothetical situations but unable to apply rules to real-world situations.
Damage early in life never learn these rules; motivated only to avoid punishment.

26. Emotion and the Nervous System
Prefrontal cortex:
The final destination for much of the brain’s information about emotion
Processes this information prior to action being taken.
Appears to regulate emotion in more logical, rational way
Allows us to think rather than just react
Prefrontal damage: lose rational response to emotions
Damage results in inappropriate emotional responses to rewards and punishment
When the “rational” center for modulating emotions is damaged, get lower brain responses to emotional situations

27. Emotion and the Nervous System
Damage to prefrontal cortex:
Individuals unable to use information to guide their behavior.
Related to several “impulsive” disorders
Risky decisions
Gambling
Lack of impulse control: say what is on your mind, no social filter
Gary Busey!
If damage in adulthood: know the social rule but can’t use it
If damage in childhood: never learn social “rules”
In contrast, damage to both amygdalas results in lack of emotional response in the first place.

28. Hemispheric differences
Both hemispheres involved in the experience of emotions
Are distinct differences:
Left frontal area is more active when the person is experiencing positive emotions
Right frontal area is more active during negative emotion.

29. Hemispheric differences
Damage to the left hemisphere :
Often express more anxiety
More sadness about their situation
In a sense, more verbal awareness of deficits

30. Hemispheric differences
Right -hemisphere damage:
More likely to be unperturbed or even euphoric
Even when have physical symptoms such as arm or leg paralysis.
Autonomic responses to emotional stimuli such as facial expressions and emotional scenes are greater when stimuli presented to the right hemisphere.
Perception of non-verbal aspects of emotion impaired in right-hemisphere-damaged patients.

31. Bottom Line Variety of organs involved in modulation of emotions
Limbic system
Prefrontal area
Hypothalamus
Autonomic nervous system
Many emotions are innate
Prewired or hardwired
Not have to learn
BUT: emotional responses may also be learned
Learn to express/not express
Learn cultural derivations of emotion