PSYCH-101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Prefrontal Cortex, Joseph E. Ledoux, Autonomic Nervous System
30 Oct 2020
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Document Summary
Emotions are responses to external or internal eliciting stimuli. Emotional responses result from our interpretation or cognitive appraisal of these stimuli. Our bodies respond physiologically to our appraisal. Emotions include behaviour tendencies, being either expressive (exhibiting surprise, smiling, crying, etc. ) or instrumental (ways of doing something about the stimulus that aroused the emotion, eg. studying for an anxiety arousing test) Cognitions are involved in every aspect of emotion. Appraisal processes idea that emotional reactions are triggered by cognitive appraisals accounts for fact that different people can have different emotional reactions to the same situation. Subcortical structures (hypothalamus, amygdale, hippocampus) play major roles in emotion. Cerebral cortex has many connections with hypothalamus and limbic system, allowing constant communication between cortical and subcortical regions. Ability to regulate emotion depends heavily on prefrontal. Joseph ledoux revealed important links between cortex and cortex limbic system and to amygdale. Thalamus sends messages through two pathways: to cortex, Amygdale can receive input and generate emotional.
