PSYC 741 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Somatic Marker Hypothesis, Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, Extrastriate Body Area
Document Summary
5 regions are associated with reward: anterior insula/frontal operculum, striatum, amygdala, mediodorsal thalamus, pregenual acc/ventromedial pfc. Evidence for these five regions come from fmri studies. Types of rewards: money: ventral striatum and anterior ofc, food: somatosensory cortex and dorsal anterior insula, sex: amygdala, extrastriate body area, ventral anterior insula. They fear the bell and the room. Neurobiology of fear: fast emotional-processing pathway (fight or flight stress hormones) 15ms after cue, the lateral amygdala shows increased firing rates (simple responses) like skin conductance response and goes directly to the amygdala. Relies on long term potentiation: slow emotional-processing pathway. Prefrontal cortex chooses the response within the slow response: amygdala lesions impairs fear of cues and contexts. In rats with lesion: no fear of cues no fear response. Leads to reduced skin conductance response: evidence: Bilateral amygdala damage: no skin conductance during conditioning, but they have no issue learning facts. No freezing response to neither cue nor context no emotional response.
