PSYC 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Method Acting, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
Document Summary
2 almond shaped nuclei in center of brain. Sends projections into the visual cortex: when you see something like a snake, your visual symptom ramps up, you are processing it more. Important for emotional aspects of memory: we remember emotional things more. Sneds signals to prefrontal cortex that are important for decision making, regulation of emotion. Tells us what something does and what tto do about it. Sensitive to both positive and negative emotions. Important for tagging what is relevant in the world and then sending it to other parts of the brain to process it: something scary avoid, someone attractive pass on genes, location of food eat. Phineas gage (vmpfc: rod through ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmpfc, started making bad decisions. Still did these things: was no longer able to evaluate what the consequences of certain actions would be, functional coupling between vmpfc and the amygdala. Vmpfc usually tells amygdala to calm down and control reaction.
