Neural Correlates of Conscious Emotional Experience Group 3 Week 8 Youngjin Kang Alyssa Nolde Antoinette Sellers Zhiheng Zhou

Who is Weiskrantz and what did he contribute? By studying patients with blindsight, Weiskrantz wanted to study how the brain reflects upon or comments on what is perceived. Weiskrantz research focused on both what is “aware” and “unaware.” He also wanted to figure out whether the DACC was the final place for output concerning the “commentary stage” or where awareness of emotion can be expressed and registered. Found that a preferential activation of the DLPFC during the visual processing in the “aware” state.

Why is attention to emotional experience important…? Attention in emotional experience is important for… –Adapting to unfamiliar situations –Planning behavior –Practicing restraint/control of emotions Attention to emotional experience allows us to be conscious of what we are feeling and plan future behavior accordingly (i.e. we’re on our best behavior on a first date or in an interview)

Do we, or do we not, attend to emotion? We attend to our emotions both consciously and unconsciously We have emotional experience without conscious awareness of the experience of emotion –Ex: we experience the appropriate emotion elicited by music in movies without consciously thinking about or attending to the emotional experience We have emotional experience with conscious awareness of the experience of emotion –Ex: when public speaking we are often very aware of our emotional experience and attempt to control them by attending to them consciously

5 Lane et al., 1997b New data based off of Weiskrantz Looked at the pattern of neural activation associated with attending to one’s own emotional experience 12 sets of images (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) from IAPS In 1/2 sets, participants were told to focus on the emotional experience. »The other half, told to attend to spatial location Saw increased activity in rostral cingulate cortex, medial PFC, right temporal pole, insula, and ventral cingulate cortex during emotional experience Lane: rostral anterior cingulate cortex and the medial PFC may be where the representation of an emotional state may occur region connected to amygdala and other limbic structures and regions involved in working memory

6 Who was right? Does not state who was right or who was wrong Believe that Lane seems to be building upon evidence put forth by Weiskrantz and adding to the existing data

7 Phineas Gage Gage was a railroad construction worker in 1848 An explosion caused a metal rod to be shot through his left PFC Gave him a frontal lobotomy The exact location of the damage is speculated based on the path that the rod took through the skull This resulted in Loss of social inhibitions Inappropriate behavior Personality changes

8 How Gage Connects to Lane Frontal lobe control of motivational impulses results from integrating the vetral and dorsal corticolimbic pathways Ventral: Orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala Restricts and monitors impulses through a feedback mechanism Lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex cause disinhibition Lane draws the conclusion that the ventral and dorsal corticolimbic pathways play a role in social inhibition and impulse control based on the evidence presented above and the case of Phineas Gage Gage provided early evidence for what Lane is stating

What is strategic about location of the ACC in relation to the other regions discussed? ventrolateral pathway –important regions: amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex –feedback mechanism mediodorsal pathway –important regions: hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex –feedforward mechanism

Explain what cytoarchitectonic studies are and why they matter in this context. a gradient of laminar organization within the frontal cortex from the most anterior (least differentiated) to posterior portions. stepwise change in laminar features is characterized by the emergence and gradual increase in the width of granular layer IV, by an increase in the size of pyramidal cells in layers III and V, and by a higher cell- packing density in the supragranular layers interconnections are limited to areas within the same architectonic trend

Two Types of Emotional Consciousness 1. Primary Consciousness - Phenomenal Awareness - Direct experience of emotion and sensation. - Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex 2. Secondary Consciousness - Reflective awareness - Cognitive operation (e.g. attending, reflecting etc.) on the content of phenomenal awareness. - metacognition (awareness of awareness) ? - Rostral anterior cingulate cortex Critical Questions  “Secondary consciousness is a necessary term to understand emotional consciousness?” - “Is secondary consciousness really related to emotional experiences?” - “Isn’t secondary consciousness working memory?” - “Is operation of working memory necessarily conscious operation?”