Sensory Deprivation Experiment

How was it conducted?

Results

The subject was placed in a zero simulation setting for 24 hours. After 4-8 hours subject was distressed and were desperate for even the dullest simulations.

Study concluded that humans have an inherent need for simulation. 

Drive is a hypothetical state of arousal that motivates an organism to engage in a particular behavior.

Drive theories assume the brain stores the need for engagement and then when the threshold is reached it flushes and acts on the drive.

-"Flush model" once a behavior is started, it will continue until all the energy in its reservoir is gone.

- Different behaviors have different energy reserves.

Drive and brain activity connection.

-related? 

Drive is not related to brain activity.

changes in hormones and cellular activity are related to behavioral changes. 

-ex:) male hormone is related to frequency of copulation.

Why do cats kills birds even though they are well-fed?

-secure survival

-there is a rewarding feeling at the end of the killing circuit. cats "feel good" after a kill. innate behavior. 

-they need this reward to keep doing it. so they dont starve.

IRM (stands for what?)

explain 

example

Innate Releasing Mechanism

-a mechanism fashioned to detect sensory stimuli and conduct organs to act a certain way to bring about the desired action.

 -these mechanisms are prewired into the brain but, can be adjusted with time and experience. 

-Ex: blind children can still smile even if they have never seen a smile before (never learned but prewired to match action)

-airborne chemicals dissolve in olfactory mucosa

-METABOTROPIC receptors induce opening of SODIUM channels and change potential across membrane :. action 

What is the olfactory pathway?

-brain analyzes common odors and body odors differently. smelling a human also stimulates the posterior cingulate cortex, occipital cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex (these regions are also stimulated by vision)

-the odor of a stranger is perceived to be stronger and less pleasant than a known person. this was probably important as survival skill.

What are the five taste-receptor types?

Where can taste receptors be found?

What do the taste buds connect to?

-sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami

-found within taste buds on mouth and nasopharynx

-connect to cranial nerves (7-facial) (9-glossopharyngeal) (10-vagus)

Describe Gustation pathway.

Where is flavour precieved? Where is feeding behavior initiated?

cranial nerves from main gustatory nerve pass through the brain stem and split into two parts. 

The flavour preception pathway travels through the posterior medulla to the ventroposterior medial nucleus (thalamus.) At this loaction, the pathway branches out into two parts. One part goes to primary somatosensory cortex (texture+tactile taste info) and the other goes to the primary gustatory cortex(taste detection) of the insula. Then the gustatory cortex sends a stimuli to the orbital cortex to comprehend the taste.

Feeding behavior origins in the hypothalamus and amygdala.

Discuss the argument of B.F. Skinner

Re: Piegon, learned behavior, 

reinforcers are rewards. when a reinforcing event follows a response, the chances of that event happening again are more likely. experience shapes behavior.

Operant conditioning - pigeon pecks at a disk, gets food. does it again and again. other behaviors can be thought to the pigeon, turn before pecking/jump/etc. 

Pairing stimuli behavior shapes behavior in an environment. Complex behaviors are learned and are likely to be learned easier when they are related to evolutionary adaptations. Pigeon can't learn to escape from a shock by pecking. pecking is associated with food not danger.

What is learned taste aversion?

Who is responsible for this observation?

It's an an aquired association between a specific taste for odour and illness. Coyotes were given poisoned lamb's so never ate lamb's again. Based on operant conditioning.

Garcia showed this observation with coyotes.

What are the critical structures in emotional and motivational behavior?

Motivations are infrences we make about why someone (including ourselves) engages in a particular behavior. 

Two general classes are regulatory and non-regulatory. 

Hypothalmus's role in hormone secretion

-how is it regulated through pituitary gland?

-principle function of hypothalamus in hormone secretions is to control the pituitary gland.

-endocrine gland attached to the bottom of the hypothalamus

it's secretions control the activities of many other endocrine glands.

-known to be associated with biological rhythms.

lateral region

medial region

paraventricular region

What is the job of the medial hypothalamus region?

(Medial Forebrain Bundle)

Dopamine-containing fibers are involved in reward and therefore contirbute to many motivated behaviors. Fibers that go to the brain from the dopamine and noradrenaline-containing cells of the lower brainstem form a significant part of MFB.

-the medial region tract connects structures in the brainstem with various parts of the limbic system.

-forms the activating projections from the brainstem to the basal ganglia and frontal cortex.

What type of tissue makes up 

-Posterior Pituitary?

-Anterior Pituitary?

-Posterior pituitary: neural tissue, continuation of hypothalamus

-Anterior pituitary: glandular tissue, synthesizes hormones

How are hormones made?

How are they release? by wich structure?

The posterior pituitary has capillaries in it which distribute the peptides made in the hypothalamus (via the bloodstream) Different peptides go to different regions of the body to produce the specific required effect. Example: Oxytocin to the mammary glands for milk ejection. 

The anterior pituitary synthesizes hormones in it's glandular body. The rate at which these hormones are released is controlled by releasing hormones (made in the hypothalmus) Releasing hormones are made in the hypothalamus and then sercreted into capillaries that end in the glandular body of the anterior pituitatary and regulate when those hormones are released. Ex: ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone) controls secretions of adrenal cortex.

Cingulate gyrus

Hippocampal formation

hippocampus

parahippocampal cortex

-three-layered subcortical structure of the limbic system lying in the medial temporal region of the temporal lobe.

-plays a role in species-specific behaviors, memory, and spatial navigation.

-vulnerable to effects of stress.

why do we call amygdala multidomal?

What does the amygdala do?

where does it recieve information from? Send information to?

Many neurons respond to more than one sensory modality.

Plays a role in emotional and species-specific behavior.

Receives information from all sensory systems. send projections to hypothalamus and brainstem.

Motor cortex: fine movements

Premotor cortex: movement sequence planning

Prefrontal cortex: specifying the goals toward which movement should be made. dorsolateral and inferior regions.

-Where does the prefrontal cortex receive information from?

-What is the function of the

-Dorsolateral region?

-Inferior region?

Damage to the frontal lobe....

Receives information from amygdala, dorsomedial thalamus, posterior parietal cortex, and dopaminergic cells of ventral tagmental area.

(the dopaminergic input influences how prefrontal neurons react to stimuli, especially emotionally arousing stimuli.)

Inferior region: projects to amygdala and hypothalamus. influencing autonomic system (blood pressure, heart rate etc, )

Dorsolateral region: has connection endings in posterior parietal cortex, cingulate cortex, basal ganglia, and premotor cortex. Influences movement and memory.

Damage to the frontal lobe causes lack of concentration, lack of ability to act on internalized information when distracted by irrelevant stimuli, like television.

Agenesis is condidtion where there is a failure of structure to develop.

Agenesis of the frontal lobe makes patients not be influenced by past consequences of actions (punishment doesnt work) and environmental input does not register either. Patients are unable to formulate plans for the future or inhibit many of their behaviors. They also act on impulse and are known to have agressive outbursts. 

1. autonomic responses (i/c heart rate)

-hypothalamus and assosiated structures

2.subjective feelings (fear)

-amygdala and parts of frontal lobe

3.congnition (thoughts about the experience)

-cerebral cortex

Two lines of evidence:

1.we have the same physical response to different emotions. 

2. the higher up on the spinal cord the injury takes place is directly proportional to the amount of sensory input they have lost and (low=parapalegic, up=quadrapalegic) the higher the loss of input, the greater the emotional insensitivity. 

Somatic markers hypothesis: marker signal arising from emotions and feelings act to guide behavior and decision making, usually an unconscious process.