PSY100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Nucleus Accumbens, Behavioral Addiction, Limbic System
psych lec 6 10/6/2015 5:18:00 AM
• Glutamate – accelerator, excitatory functions, cognitive functions through
the acceleration
• can be helpful for a variety different functions
• motivated through this idea of excitation
• GABA – inhibitor
• Glutamate & GABA pretty opposite of each other
• inhibits stuff
• Acetylcholine – must look at PNS and CNS
• PNS – ACh affects muscle/motor control
o Botox, paralysis
• CNS – ACh completely different, higher cognitive functions
• Norepinephrine – a regular of arousal and alertness
• Plays a regulatory role in arousal system
• Serotonin – mood regulator
• Happy/sad
• emotional climate
• if someone is depressed, serotonin is involved in the affective part
of feeling bad
• Dopamine – reward, motor, planning
•
➢ Consider, for a moment, the staggeringly enormous number of small
effects that particular neurotransmitters have over your daily life
➢ in a sense, you are the plaything of chemical gods, with your “self”
• For example, what guides what we do? Every day, we make countless
choices….why?
o Pleasure, of course!
o (or, “hedonically calculated utility maximization”)
o But what is "pleasure", to your neurons? how does “pleasure” get
computed at the micro-level of your neurons?
➢ Dopamine
• Dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens is a practically universal
PLEASURE mechanism….and the common bond among drugs of
employment and abuse
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
The Dopamine System
• tracking the good
• Drugs of abuse commandeer the brains natural reward circuitry
• stimulation of this pathway reinforces behavior, ensuring that what you
just did you will do again
VTA → dopamine in NAcc, amygdala, PFC, etc.
THEN
activation of affect, motor & attentional systems
Neuroanatomy Overview
• your brain in your hand…
• evolutionary direction of function & morphology (back to front, inside to
outside) (except for the cerebellum!!!)
• brainstem/hindbrain, limbic system & sub-cortical areas, cerebral cortices
(4 lobes)
• Occipital, parietal, temporal, frontal
• PFC & cerebellum
The Split-Brain
• Left side and right side of the brain can operate autonomously from each
other
• but don’t usually because they’re connected by the corpus callosum
• Left – linear, logic, language
• Right - holism, music, emotion
• "the great pleasure and feeling in my right brain is more than my left
brain can find the words to tell you" - Roger Sperry
Neurological-Perceptual Problems
• We are profoundly dependent upon properly functioning brain systems,
right down to our micro-abilities
• E.g. Oliver Sacks
• blindsight (e.g. tracking movement in “blind spot”; e.g. case of the 53 y/o
doctor with complete cortical blindness, reading emotional expressions
because of functioning amygdala
•
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
65
PSY100H1 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
65 documents
Document Summary
Consider, for a moment, the staggeringly enormous number of small effects that particular neurotransmitters have over your daily life. Dopamine: dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens is a practically universal. Pleasure mechanism . and the common bond among drugs of employment and abuse. The dopamine system: tracking the good, drugs of abuse commandeer the brains natural reward circuitry, stimulation of this pathway reinforces behavior, ensuring that what you just did you will do again. Vta dopamine in nacc, amygdala, pfc, etc. Then activation of affect, motor & attentional systems. Neurological-perceptual problems: we are profoundly dependent upon properly functioning brain systems, right down to our micro-abilities, e. g. Oliver sacks: blindsight (e. g. tracking movement in blind spot ; e. g, blindsight (e. g. tracking movement in blind spot ; e. g. case of the 53 y/o doctor with complete cortical blindness, reading emotional expressions because of functioning amygdala.
