Biological Theories Rationale Papers 1 Swanson L W

Biological Theories • Rationale • Papers: – 1. Swanson, L. W. (2000). Cerebral hemisphere regulation of motivated behavior. Brain Research, 886, 113 -164. – 2. Le. Doux, J. E. (1998). The Emotional Brain. Chapter 6: A few degrees of separation. New York: Simon and Schuster. – 3. Gray, J. A. (1995). A model of the limbic system and basal ganglia: applications to anxiety and schizophrenia. In Gazzaniga, M. S. (Ed. ). The Cognitive Neurosciences (pp. 1165 -1176). Cambridge: MIT Press. – 4. Carver, C. S. , & Scheier, M. F. (1998). Chapter 5: Goals and behavior. In Authors, On the self-regulation of behavior (pp. 10 -82). Selected Readings. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

The nature of reality • Networks of complex causation • There is far more to reality than you see – There is far more to reality than you can see

The world is framed

The world is framed

Proliferation and Death Natural Selection: The solution to the frame problem

Brain Systems

The world must be framed • Motivation sets frame – Not “goals, ” not “drives, ” not “reflexes” – Includes goals, emotions, perceptions, actions • Emotions track progress – Ahead – Stop, Back

The world is framed • Motivation sets goals • Emotions track progress towards goals – There is some overlap, because there is no single “motivation” system and no single “emotion” system

Basic Motivations? • • Hunger Thirst Pain Anger/Aggression Thermoregulation Panic/Escape Affiliation/Care Sexual Desire • Exploration • Play • Self Maintenance – Ingestive – Defensive • Self Propagation – Reproductive

Hypothalamus

Basic Emotions? • Approach (behavioral activation) – – Curiosity Joy Hope Interest • Defense & avoidance (flight & behavioral inhibition) – Pain – Anxiety – Disgust

Normal or Incremental Anomaly

Order and Chaos Revolutionary Anomaly

Vinogradova

Hippocampus • Old idea – Compares what is expected to what is – Problem: what is • New idea – Compares model of what is to what is desired

Amygdala • Mismatch – Hippocampal disinhibition – of reticular activating system inputs – to amygdala

• Red: Rostral: – goals • Black: Caudal – Exploration

What is a stimulus? • An elicitor of behavior – Any thing or situation • The thing or situation is “given” for the behaviorist • Behaviorism is predicated on a naïve realism » Behaviorists don’t really care how the stimulus is derived » The object exists more or less as it manifests itself

What is a reinforcing stimulus or a “reinforcement”? • Any thing or situation whose appearance produces an alteration in behavior – any thing or situation that modifies memory? • Any thing or situation that produces an emotional response (Rolls, 1999)

Kinds of reinforcement: • Unconditioned (unlearned or primary) • Conditioned (learned or secondary– but not only)

Unconditioned reinforcement (the pleasant side): • Rewards – Animals will work to gain reward (Rolls, 1999) – Rewards can be associated with otherwise neutral stimuli, through association • classical conditioning – Rewards increase the probability of behavior immediately preceding the reward • operant conditioning – Animals will work to gain reward

Unconditioned reinforcement (the unpleasant side) • Punishments – Animals will work to avoid punishment (Rolls, 1999) – Punishments can be associated with otherwise neutral stimuli, through association • classical conditioning • Punishments – Punishments decrease the probability of behavior immediately preceding the reward

Unconditioned rewards are consummatory, and produce cessation of consummatory behavior • remediation for states of deprivation – water for the thirsty – food for the hungry – touch for the lonely – sexual activity for the sexually deprived • but also play, in states of relaxation

Unconditioned rewards produce satisfaction • most likely mediated by the serotonergic system • and allow for alternate states of deprivation to emerge, and govern behavior

Sham feeding interrupts consummatory reward • “in this situation, the animal can taste, smell and eat the food normally, but the food drains from the stomach…” • “satiety (reduction of appetite) does not occur [during sham feeding]… instead rats and monkeys continue to eat for often more than an hour when they can taste and smell food normally, but food drains from the stomach…”

• We can conclude that taste and smell, and even swallowing food, do not produce satiety. There is an important psychological point here – reward itself does not produce satiety. • Instead, the satiety for feeding is produced by food accumulating in the stomach, and entering the intestine – gastric and intestinal distention – physiological alterations (blood glucose) • Rolls, 1999, pp. 9 -10

It is interesting to note that satiety to food is food specific • sensory specific • there is always room for dessert

• it appears as though cells in the lateral hypothalamus respond to food, in states of deprivation, but satiety shuts them off – these cells are more active in states of extreme deprivation – the level of activity of these cells is associated with reward valence – does not shut off cells that respond to taste discrimination, however • Rolls, 1999, p. 12

Unconditioned punishments are punishment, and produce extinction, passive avoidance, and aggression • stimuli of sufficient intensity to damage the receptive system – loud noises, heat, cold, pressure, tissue damage • states of deprivation – including grief – including time out

Unconditioned punishments produce pain/hurt, anger, depression • mediated in part by opiate systems • approach aspect dopaminergic

Conditioned rewards are incentive rewards, and produce approach behavior • movement towards stimuli or situations associated with consummatory reward – or associated with other incentive rewards

Conditioned or incentive rewards produce hope • may be used to increase the probability of preceding behavior • seeking, curiosity, excitement, please • most likely mediated by the dopaminergic system

The incentive aspect of food • “rats, monkeys and humans will work to obtain food when they are sham feeding. • This shows that it is the taste and smell of food which provide the immediate reward for food-motivated behavior

Conditioned punishments are threats, and produce behavioral inhibition (freezing) • may be used to decrease the probability of preceding behavior • produces cessation of ongoing activity

Complex stimuli

Novelty • cue for punishment – threat/anxiety • cue for consummatory reward – promise/hope

Absences of expected rewards • threatening/hope-inspiring (novelty) and punishing – disappointment – frustration

Absences of expected punishments • threatening/hope-inspiring (novelty) and rewarding – relieving

The role of expectancy and cognition • anything may “stand for” a consummatory reward – partly because of conditioning – partly because of cognition • the use of fiction and “as if”

Emotion: Elicited by Reinforcing Stimuli • Elicitation of autonomic responses – Change in heart rate – Change in endocrine response • Release of adrenaline • Prepare the body for motor response • Projections from the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex – to the hypothalamus – To the brainstem autonomic motor nuclei

Functions of Emotion • Increased appropriate response to reinforcing stimuli – The emotion as cognitive/motor tendency • Rather than the response as fixed behavior – Learning as multi-stage process, with increased discrimination of behavior • Escape, first, to threat/punishment • Learning of instrumental responses, later, to avoid or modify the punishment

Functions of Emotion, continued • Communicative: – I am afraid, angry, hurt, happy • This is all information about the shared environment • This is all information to allow for social interchange, and the possibility of mutual adaptive regulation

Functions of Emotion, continued • Cognitive effects: a given mood state can serve as a generalized prime for similar thoughts or memories – Perhaps as a kind of specialized retrieval cue • And as an aid to problem solving • Perhaps through amygdalic backprojections to the cortex – Perhaps as an aid to the construction of different perceptual representations • The world consists of different “things”, depending on current motivational and emotional state

Functions of Emotion, continued • By enduring for minutes or longer, it may help to produce persistent motivation and direction of behavior.

Neural processing of Emotion • Brain mechanisms compute the reward value of primary reinforcers • Other brain regions learn associations between previously neutral stimuli – Objects, say, or faces – With primary reinforcers – Brain processes object first, then valence

Neural processing of Emotion, continued • Once relevant brain areas have calculated valence – Signal is passed to output regions

Neural processing, continued • First: Autonomic and endocrine outputs • Second: Unconscious/implicit/habitual actions – Basal ganglia • Third: Output to brain areas capable of planning and rehearsing many steps ahead – Deferring short term rewards for long term payoff – Linguistic/cognitive systems (prefrontal)