PSYC 389 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Autonomic Nervous System, Putamen, Cortisol
4 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
1
CH3 Motivational and Emotional Brain
Neuroscience: the scientific study of the nervous system
- Psychological process: cognitive neuroscience
- Motivational process: motivational neuroscience
- Emotional processes: affective neuroscience
Day-to-day events activate specific brain structures → generate specific behaviors
Cerebral Cortex
- Functions at a conscious, intentional, and purposeful level
- Provides planning required for complex behaviors
- Adapts behaviors to new situations
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2
■ Prefrontal Cortex
- Affect
- Goals/ Personal Strivings
- Right
- Negative emotions
- Avoidance behaviors
- Sympathetic
- Left
- Positive emotions
- Approach behaviours
- Parasympathetic
■ Orbitofrontal Cortex
- Stores and processes reward related information
- Helps us develop preferences and to make decisions based on those
preferences
- Inhibiting inappropriate actions
- Delayed gratification
- Reciprocal inhibition with subcortical structures
■ Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
- Determines affective value of sensory stimuli and social cues
- Integrates cognition and emotion during decision making
■ Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
- Stores information related to the learned emotional value of objects and events
- Self control
- Socioemotional competence
■ Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
- Major control region of the brain
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3
- Prioritizing attention
- Monitoring conflict
- Making choices
- Predicting consequences of action
Subcortical brain
- Functions at a unconscious, automatic, and emotional level
- Associated with basic urges and impulses, as well as emotion-rich motivations
Bidirectional communication
■ Neural pathways
- Brain regions do not function independently - they form pathways with other brain
regions
- Communication pathways allow the cognitive, motivational, and emotional states that
arise in one brain area to inform, contribute to, and change the cognitive, motivational,
and emotional states that arise in another part of the brain
- Cortical structures: cognitive control
- Self- control, resisting temptation
- Subcortical structures: basic motivations
- Erratic behavior, giving into temptation
- Dual-process theories
- It is the bidirectional forces between basic motivations and cognitive control
over these basic motivations and emotions that dictate our behavior
- Cortical brain structures take longer to fully develop, leaving subcortical
structures uninhibited
- Children have difficulty controlling their urges, but their self-control
improves throughout development
■ Neurotransmitters
- Neurons communicate with one another through the release, transmission, and
receive of neurotransmitters
- Dopamine: reward and pleasure (positive emotions)
- Serotonin: mood and emotion
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Document Summary
Neuroscience: the scientific study of the nervous system. Day-to-day events activate specific brain structures generate specific behaviors. Functions at a conscious, intentional, and purposeful level. Helps us develop preferences and to make decisions based on those preferences. Determines affective value of sensory stimuli and social cues. Stores information related to the learned emotional value of objects and events. Functions at a unconscious, automatic, and emotional level. Associated with basic urges and impulses, as well as emotion-rich motivations. Brain regions do not function independently - they form pathways with other brain regions. Communication pathways allow the cognitive, motivational, and emotional states that arise in one brain area to inform, contribute to, and change the cognitive, motivational, and emotional states that arise in another part of the brain. It is the bidirectional forces between basic motivations and cognitive control over these basic motivations and emotions that dictate our behavior. Cortical brain structures take longer to fully develop, leaving subcortical structures uninhibited.
