Chapter 12 Emotional Behaviors

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Chapter 12Emotional Behaviors

• Module 11.1

• What Is Emotion?

Module 11.2
Attack and Escape Behaviors
Module 11.3
Stress and Health
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What is Emotion?

• An emotional state has three aspects
• Cognition (assessment of situation This is
  dangerous.)
• Feelings (I feel scaredrequires labeling)
• Action (involves physical response, such as
  running away)

Common Sense View
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What is Emotion?

• Action, or readiness for action is a product of
  the autonomic nervous system (ANS).
• James-Lange theory (1884) autonomic arousal and
  skeletal action occur first, then come
  feelings/emotions.
• The emotion that is felt is the label that we
  give the arousal of the organs and muscles.

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What is Emotion?

• According to the James-Lange theory
• People with a weak autonomic or skeletal response
  should feel less emotion.
• Increasing ones response should enhance an
  emotion.

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What is Emotion? Evidence Supporting the
James-Lange Theory

• People with pure autonomic failure report
  feeling emotion less intensely.
• Pure autonomic failure - output from the
  autonomic nervous system almost entirely fails.

• Botulinum toxin (BOTOX) blocks transmission at
  synapses and nerve-muscle junctions, resulting in
  temporary paralysis, resulting in weaker than
  usual emotional responses

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What is Emotion? Evidence Supporting the
James-Lange Theory

• Creating certain body actions may also slightly
  influence emotion.
• smiling slightly increases happiness.
• Inducing a frown leads to the rating of stimuli
  as slightly less pleasant.
• Indicates that perception of the body's actions
  do contribute to emotional feeling

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What is Emotion? Evidence Refuting the
James-Lange Theory

• Research indicates that paralyzed people report
  feeling emotion to the same degree as prior to
  their injury

• Contradictory research suggests other factors are
  involved in the perception of emotion.

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What is Emotion? Basic Emotions

• Facial expressions are just one source of
  information about emotion
• Research indicates that facial expressions, body
  posture, tone of voice all convey emotional
  meaning

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What is Emotion?

• Emotional experiences arouse many areas of the
  brain.
• The limbic system has traditionally been regarded
  as critical for emotion.
• PET and fMRI studies also suggest many other
  areas of the cerebral cortex, especially the
  frontal and temporal lobes, are activated during
  an emotional experience.

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What is Emotion?

• Emotions tend not to be localized in specific
  parts of the cortex.
• A single emotion increases activity in various
  parts of the brain.

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What is Emotion?

• Inactivation of the medial frontal cortex appears
  to impair the ability to recognize angry
  expression.

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What is Emotion?

• Insular cortex
• strongly activated when experiencing disgust
• primary taste cortex
• reacts to frightening stimuli as well.

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What is Emotion?

• The two hemispheres of the brain play different
  roles in emotion.

• Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) associated
  with increased activity of the frontal and
  temporal lobes of the right hemisphere
• Increases attention and arousal
• Inhibits action
• Stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust

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What is Emotion?

• Behavioral Activation System increased activity
  of left hemisphere frontal and temporal areas
• associated with approach
• marked by low to moderate arousal
• registers happiness or anger

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What is Emotion?

• Differences in prefrontal cortex activity relates
  to personality.

• People with greater activity in the left
  hemisphere tend to be happier, more out-going and
  friendlier.

• People with greater right hemisphere activity
  tend to be socially withdrawn, less satisfied
  with life, and prone to unpleasant emotions.

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What is Emotion?

• The right hemisphere seems to be more responsive
  to emotional stimuli than the left.
• Damage to the right temporal cortex causes
  problems in the ability to identify emotions of
  others.

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What is Emotion?

• One major function of emotion is to help us make
  decisions.
• Failure to anticipate the unpleasantness of an
  event can lead to bad decision making.
• Low autonomic arousal is correlated with making
  logical moral decisions

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Pain, threat or other unpleasant stimuli usually
  trigger an attack behavior.
• Attack behaviors are associated with increased
  activity in the corticomedial area of the
  amygdala.
• After experiencing a provocation, people are more
  likely to attack for a period of time afterwards.
• An initial attack behavior increases the
  probability of a second attack behavior.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Twins studies suggest genetic contribution to the
  likelihood of violent behavior.

• Smoking cigarettes while pregnant is correlated
  with violent behavior in offspring.
• The effect is particularly strong if the mother
  smoked and also had complications during
  pregnancy.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Environmental factors can combine with genetic
  factors to influence behavior.
• Adopted children have the highest probability of
  violent behavior if the biological parent has a
  criminal record and there is discord in the
  adopted family household.
• A biological predisposition alone, or a troubled
  adoptive family by itself, produces only moderate
  effects.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• On average, males engage in more aggressive and
  violent behaviors than do females.
• Male aggressive behavior is influenced by the
  hormone testosterone.
• Research shows that men with the highest rates of
  violent behavior also have slightly higher
  testosterone levels.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Studies suggest a connection between aggressive
  behavior and low serotonin release.
• Turnover is the amount of release and resynthesis
  of a neurotransmitter by presynaptic neurons.
• In human and animal studies, low serotonin
  turnover has been linked to
• violent behavior and violent crime
• suicide by violent means

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Fear is associated with a strong tendency to
  escape from an immediate threat.
• Anxiety is a general sense that something
  dangerous might occur.
• Not necessarily associated with the desire to
  flee.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• The startle reflex is the extremely fast response
  to unexpected loud noises.
• found in young infants and thus unlearned.
• Auditory information stimulates an area of the
  pons that commands the tensing of the neck and
  other muscles.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Stimuli previously associated with the startle
  response enhances the startle response.
• Cells in the amygdala are responsible.
• Cells in the amygdala receive information from
  pain, vision, and hearing circuits.
• Axons extend to areas in the midbrain that relay
  information to the nucleus in the pons.
• The relay enhances the startle reflex.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Output from the amygdala to the hypothalamus
  controls autonomic fear responses.
• Axons extending from the amygdala to the
  prefrontal cortex regulate approach and avoidance
  responses.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• fMRI studies of humans suggest the amygdala
  responds strongly to emotional stimuli and facial
  expressions.
• Activity is strongest when the meaning is unclear
  and requires some processing.
• With some exceptions, looking at happy faces
  activates the amygdala only weakly.
• Amygdala also responds to stimuli not consciously
  perceived.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Damage to the amygdala interferes with
• learning of fear responses
• retention of fear responses previously learned
• interpreting or understanding stimuli with
  emotional consequences

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Attack and Escape Behaviors Anxiety Disorders

• Damage to the amygdala impairs the processing of
  emotional information when the signals are subtle
  or complicated.
• Amygdala damage affects the ability to judge
  trustworthiness in people.
• People with amygdala damage focus on emotional
  stimuli the same as irrelevant stimuli or details.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• People with overactive amygdalae may experience
  anxiety
• physical distress, including muscle tension,
  heart palpitations, sweating, rapid breathing
• emotional distress, including worry, etc.
• Panic Disorder episodes of extreme anxiety
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder recurrent/continuou
  s anxiety with no identifiable cause
• Phobias fear of a specific place, thing, or
  situation
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) anxiety
  that occurs after experiencing a traumatic event

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Excessive fear and anxiety disorders are
  associated with hyperactivity in the amygdala
• Drugs intended to control anxiety alter activity
  at amygdala synapses.
• The main excitatory neuromodulator in the
  amygdala is CCK, and the main inhibitory
  transmitter is GABA.
• Injections of CCK-stimulating drugs into the
  amygdala enhance the startle response.
• Drugs that increase GABA activity decrease panic.

• GABA STOP
• CCK/OrexinGO

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Benzodiazepines are the most commonly used
  anti-anxiety drugs (anxiolytics or
  tranquilizers).
• Benzodiazepines bind to the GABAA receptor
  complex, and facilitate the effects of GABA.
• Benzodiazepines exert their effects in the
  amygdala, hypothalamus, midbrain, and other
  areas.

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Attack and Escape Behaviors

• Ethyl alcohol has behavioral effects similar to
  benzodiazepines.
• Alcohol enhances GABA effects.

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Stress and Health

• Behavioral medicine emphasizes the effects of
  diet, smoking, exercise, stressful experiences,
  and other behaviors on health.
• Emotions and other experiences influence illness
  and pattern of recovery.

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Stress and Health

• Hans Selye (1979) defined stress as the
  non-specific response of the body to any demand
  made upon it.
• Threats on the body activate a general response
  to stress called the general adaptation syndrome.

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Stress and Health

• The General Adaptation Syndrome
• Alarm stage - characterized by increased
  sympathetic nervous system activity.
• Resistance stage - sympathetic response declines,
  the adrenal cortex releases cortisol and other
  hormones that enable the body to maintain
  prolonged alertness.
• Exhaustion stage - occurs after prolonged stress
  and is characterized by inactivity and decreased
  immune system.

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Stress and Health

• Stress activates two systems in the body
• The autonomic nervous system - fight or flight
  response that prepares the body for brief
  emergency responses
• The HPA axis - the hypothalamus, pituitary gland,
  and adrenal cortex.

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Stress and Health

• The HPA axis becomes the dominant response to
  prolonged stressors.
• Activation of the hypothalamus induces the
  pituitary gland to secrete adrenocorticotropic
  hormone (ACTH).
• ACTH stimulates the adrenal cortex to secrete
  cortisol.
• Cortisol enhances metabolic activity and elevates
  blood levels of sugars and other nutrients to
  mobilize energies.

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Stress and Health

• Prolonged increased cortisol levels impair the
  immune system.
• The immune system consists of cells that protect
  the body against viruses and bacteria.
• Leukocytes white blood cells.

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Stress and Health

• During an infection, leukocytes and other cells
  produce small proteins called cytokines.
• Combat infection and communicate with the brain
  to inform of illness.
• Cytokines in the brain produce symptoms of
  illness.
• Fever, sleepiness, lack of energy etc.
• Sleep and inactivity are the bodys way of
  conserving energy to fight illness.

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Stress and Health

• Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of the
  relationship between the nervous system and the
  immune system.
• Deals with the way in which experiences,
  especially stressful ones, alter the immune
  system.
• Also deals with how the immune system influences
  the central nervous system.

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Stress and Health

• Prolonged stress response is damaging to the
  body
• Increase of cortisol detracts from the synthesis
  of proteins of the immune system.
• Cortisol enhances metabolic activity in the body.
• Significantly increases the likelihood of
  illness, including autoimmune disease (immune
  system attacks normal cells)

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Stress and Health

• Prolonged stress response is damaging to the
  body
• Can be harmful to hippocampus and can affect
  memory.
• When metabolic activity is high in the
  hippocampus, the neurons are more sensitive to
  damage by toxins or over-stimulation.
• Stress also impairs the adaptability and the
  production of new hippocampal neurons.

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Stress and Health

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs in
  some people after terrifying experiences and
  includes the following symptoms
• Frequent distressing recollections
• Nightmares
• Avoidance of reminders of the event
• Exaggerated arousal in response to noises and
  other stimuli

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Stress and Health

• Studies have revealed most PTSD victims have a
  smaller than average hippocampus.
• PTSD victims show lower than normal cortisol
  levels after the trauma.
• People with low cortisol levels may be
  ill-equipped to combat stress and more prone to
  the damaging effects of stress.

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Stress and Health

• There are many ways to combat and manage stress!