PSYC 106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Stanley Schachter, Thalamus, Facial Nerve
Document Summary
The brain areas important for emotions are: prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmpfc), nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and ventral pallidum. Experiment: observed control monkeys and monkeys with unilateral and bilateral amygdala lesions and measured how readily they retrieved food pellet. The central nucleus output then initiates the fear response behavior. *this means the amygdala needs to be able to receive correct info, accurately process it, and send this info out to elicit motor response (lots of room for potential error) Synaptic strength of mpfc-amygdala circuit increases during learning because areas are talking to each other a lot. Many of these low-serotonin monkeys don"t reach full adulthood due to reckless behavior of population that died, a greater proportion had low serotonin levels: similar relationships observed in humans. Prozac (serotonin agonist used to treat depression) decreases irritability and aggressiveness: removal of serotonin receptor genes in mice leads to attacking behavior.
