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Physiology of Emotion

Beverly Lyles

Psyc 8226

Walden University

November, 2017
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Physiology of Emotion

To emote is to give expression, particularly through acting (Definition of emote, 2017),

showing outward signs of intense internal mental and physiological activity, also known as

feelings (Definition of emotion, 2017). The word emotion from the middle French is to stir; from

the Latin, is to move (Definition of emotion, 2017). Our actions, or movement caused from a

stirring inside, are most often the determining factors in being adjudged mentally ill (Hurlemann,

Hawellek, Maier, & Dolan, 2009). Emotional instability with impulsivity are the hallmarks of

borderline personality disorder, but it is suggested the core of this clinical phenotype is due to a

hyper-responsiveness in the amygdala, the emotion processing center in the brain (Hurlemann et

al., 2009). Studies have shown that emotions can cloud judgement (Strongman, 2003), impair

memory (Hurlemann et al., 2009), and impair coping mechanisms (Strongman, 2003). A review

of literature presented here supports a position which I have long advocated: Mental illness is

physical—or at least has physiological underpinnings.

Neurophysiological Correlates of Emotion

Izard’s (1993) differential emotions theory proposed that emotions are related to behavior

which develops early in life and remains mostly stable throughout the lifespan. Emotions help in

the organization of perception, cognition, coping and creativity. Personality traits arise from

“individual differences in thresholds of emotion activation and in the experience of particular

emotions” (Strongman, 2003, p. 132). Research supports the idea of subjective emotional state

and internal physiological interdependency, and that these may create expression of individual

emotional traits which are hard-wired and somewhat like personality (Garfinkel & Critchley,

2013). Through controlled attention, or mindfulness, emotion and cognition integrate over time,

as changes occur to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which calm emotional-

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cortisol reactions. Social and emotional experiences can work to temper these reactions or make

them worse—not only for the individual, but for generations to come (Hastings, Buss, & Dennis,

2012).

Cognitive and emotional processes influence each other to produce individual differences

among people. As emotions influence attention, working memory can modulate specific

emotions (Hastings et al., 2012). Emotional arousal can overtake memory encoding,

consolidation or retrieval (Leventon, Stevens, & Bauer, 2014). Emotional interference with

memory can impair recollection, whether the emotion is positive or negative. Affective valence,

or positive or negative experiences seem to play a lesser role in disruption of memory--the mind

trading off, so that central emotional themes are remembered, but out of context with place or

time (Mao, You, & Guo, 2015). Stress hormones alone can push memory processes even where

an emotional stimulus is absent (Leventon et al., 2014). Earlier studies had shown that memory

loss going forward in time is arousal-dependent, while retrograde amnesia was associated with

emotionally negative items (Hurlemann et al, 2007).

Some outward signs and behaviors are instigated by interoception, or sensitivity to bodily

physiology. According to Garfinkel and Critchley (2013), "Interoception is linked to low-level

homeostatic control processes…managed pre-consciously by peripheral, brainstem and

subcortical (eg. hypothalamic) structures" (p. 231). The linkage between interoception and

anxiety states has been widely supported (Garfinkel & Critchley, 2013). Fear conditioning

studies have shown some differences in reaction times to masked stimuli, through EMG,

hormonal and electrodermal readings—the most consistent readings were systolic blood pressure

coinciding with negative stimuli (van der Ploeg, Brosschot, Versluis, & Verkuil, 2017).

Kassam and Mendes (2013) investigated a linkage between anger and depression, with
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rumination as a mediator of anger. Participants were studied for differences between just feeling

angry, or telling others of their anger. There were increases in physiological markers, indicating

anger in both groups, but a significant increase was seen in those who were reporting their

feelings to others. Rumination keeps anger on a low boil for a longer time, which has high

impact on the cardiovascular system. Of those who kept their anger inside, when their emotional

state was pointed out, they showed a physiological response consistent with threat (Kassam &

Mendes, 2013). Threat response is also associated with panic disorder, and can be induced

through inhalation of carbon dioxide--the panic increasing dose-dependently with CO2 ingestion

(Liebold, Viechtbauer, Goossens, De Cort, Griez et al., 2013).

Passamonti and Crockett (2011) used fMRI to assess brain region reactions to viewing

angry, sad, or neutral faces after manipulating subjects' serotonin levels. They found that low

serotonin levels caused brain regions of the limbic system and frontal lobes to not communicate

well. This miscommunication may also create a condition where one reacts in anger without first

processing the situation. In aggressive individuals the amygdala-prefrontal cortex

communication was very weak, and it is hypothesized that prefrontal control would be lacking

(Serotonin levels affect, 2011).

Sapolsky (2001) described major depression as a stress-related disorder. Sustained stress

with glucocorticoid floods in the system can have adverse effects in the hippocampus, damaging

cells and creating an inability for cellular repair. This hypersecretion and subsequent damage to

brain centers is said to be the basis for major depression, and animal studies have shown that

psychosocial stressors can create a 30% decrease in neurogenesis within the hippocampus.

Human studies showed that decreases in hippocampal volume only appear after many years of

depression. Sapolsky (2001) noted support for a theory that hippocampal damage is pre-existing
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in some individuals, but there is also evidence that serotonin availability may stimulate cell re-

growth in the hippocampus. New drugs which enhance serotonin uptake inhibit cell death in the

hippocampus, without blocking cortisol in the brain. Only half of those experiencing major

depression hypersecrete cortisol, so studies need to be expanded to investigate the role of other

corticoids, or pre-existing conditions in major depression (Sapolsky, 2001).

Vervoort and Trost (2017) hypothesize that emotions occur when we appraise stimuli as

relevant or irrelevant to our central goals of survival and living well, and expression of feelings

are behavioral efforts to restore physical balance and adjust to environmental demands. People

move toward or away from each other to further their goals of consortium and furthering their

life. In accordance, when one sees another who is in pain, a state of conflict occurs in which self-

preservation may win out over helping the other. The authors explain that many who are

caregivers provide the service, while avoiding the other person's condition at the same time--

because to see someone in pain automatically activates a physiological threat reaction, rather

than one of empathetic concern. A person who can see beyond their own goals can be

sympathetic to the other and attuned with them emotionally—thus, our motivations in life

depend upon emotional self-regulation (Vervoort & Trost, 2017).

Childhood and Development of Biobehavioral Responses to the World

A child’s behavioral response to the world is shaped by their immediate environment.

Infants at 12-months old can show sympathy and try to help others in response to distress

(Hepach, Vaish, Muller & Tomasello, 2017). Hepach et al. (2017) show helping response as

correlated with heart rate deceleration, while children with increased arousal also show signs of

emotional distress. Motivation is related to internal arousal which can be physiologically

assessed through pupil dilation in children up to three years old.

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Leventon, Stevens, and Bauer (2014) stated that in older children, the amygdala displays

less reactivity, and more integration with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and working memory. The

medial temporal lobe also shows increasing integration with the PFC and working memory,

increasing personhood and conscious memory. This represents maturity and increased memory

coding and retrieval. Just as in adults, the emotionally stressful event affects cognition and

memory. In seven to eleven-year-olds, emotionally laden stories were well retained even 24

hours later. Children in the five to seven-year-old range showed late responses in heart rate, and

heart rate variability; seven to nine-year-olds showing strong emotions in particular to negative

stimuli. This is suggestive of an emerging emotional integration with memory, between the ages

of seven and nine years old (Leventon et al., 2014).

Systems of Engagement

The parasympathetic nervous system is the most recent to evolve in humans, and allows

for social interaction, engagement and sense of self, and the regulation of emotions and facial

muscles which give social cues (Clark, Skowron, Giuliano, & Fisher, 2016). A measure of the

sympathetic, or autonomic nervous system, has been through the window of time when the

cardiac ventricles are depolarized—a shorter time of depolarization indicative of higher

sympathetic activation during stress (Clark et al., 2016). According to Porges’ (1995) polyvagal

theory, the vagus nerve—with its central input and output to the limbic system and PFC—can

invoke a sense of peace. This can be measured through what is known as HRV (heart rate

variability)--a higher HRV is associated with a calm metabolic state, positive emotions, higher

levels of empathy, sustained attention and a resting parasympathetic system. In this minimal

threat state memory encoding and emotional regulation are enhanced (Clark et al., 2016).
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Clark et al. (2016) found children who grow up with conflict or in continually stressful

situations show a low activation of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways—as if

the body is in freeze mode, rather than fight or flight. With both physiological systems down,

physiological and emotional homeostasis is relinquished. Children who were not at-risk

maintained higher levels of parasympathetic tone and pro-social behavior, while those at-risk

exhibited social withdrawal during interaction. Clark et al. (2016) found no correlation between

emotional regulation and cumulative psychosocial risk.

HRV studies in children with autism suggested that both increased sympathetic and lower

parasympathetic control contributes to physiological and emotional dysregulation. HRV in

normal controls are usually very changeable in the first few years of life, and then stabilizes

between the ages of six and 15, with maturation of the autonomic nervous system (Daluwatte,

Miles, Christ, Beversdorf, Takahashi, & Yao et al., 2013). In those with intellectual disability

who cannot be asked to enunciate their feelings and emotions, testing of breath volume and

intensity and HRV showed that when stressed, the respiratory system switched over to large,

even breaths in a “shift towards sympathetic activity relative to the parasympathetic activity”

(Vos, De Cock, Petry, van den Noortgate, & Maes, 2013, p. 459). Vos et al. (2013) offered

several hypotheses as to this unexpected outcome, including the population directs more

attention to negative stimuli, and “noise” to explain differences in arousal patterns--it appears

that persons with profound intellectual disability may naturally default to regulation of the

physiological correlates of emotion.

There is much to be discovered about sense of self and resiliency. According to Buss,

Hastings, and Dennis (2012), not all maltreated children show dysregulation of the HPA or

maladaptive behaviors. Children who were younger than five years of age when sexually abused
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showed an increased turning inward and dysregulation of neuroendocrine systems when

compared to children who were older at the time of abuse. The authors submit the context in

which the emotional stimuli took place highly correlated with physiological findings and

behavioral responses—whether the child reacted by going inward, or acting out.

Berntsen and Rubin (2014) note that PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) has been

described as a condition of repeated arousal in response to extreme negative stimuli. They found

that persons suffering from traumatic events have trouble forgetting them, more so than an

amnesic effect—although some have no memory of the actual precipitating event. Trauma

appears to interrupt autobiographical memory—one that is intimately tied to a sense of self, or a

contiguous self. Berntsen and Rubin (2014) hypothesized that an inability to establish the self in

context with the precipitating traumatic event, in essence, puts a stop to selfhood at that time. In

this way, the person’s life is spared, as distance is created between the person and the traumatic

event (Berntson & Rubin, 2014).

Resiliency and the Regulation of Emotions

Emotional experience alone does not explain presence of self, and does not alone create

memories—but emotional reactions can create a mechanism which quickens attention and

perceptual processing. This is one way in which a bottom-up system can help cognition, memory

and emotional regulation (Makowski, Sperduti, Nicolas, & Piolino, 2017). Clark et al. (2016)

explain a bottom-up processing of emotional cues as referring to physiological reactions,

whereas a top-down regulation is where stimuli reaches the top of the head, so the highest brain

processes can interpret and apply strategies and adaptive responses to environmentally induced

stimuli. The person who is well integrated has a natural flow, regulating sensory, memory format

and retrieval, and emotional regulation as the lower centers and higher centers of the brain work
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together (Clark et al., 2016). Fox, Kirwan, and Reeb-Sutherland (2011) convey that

physiological responses to emotions vary somewhat even without conscious effort, due to the

autonomic nervous system’s appraisal process. Emotional regulation requires integration of

systems with the amygdala and PFC. Regulation can be measured through temporal dynamics—

as higher processing and re-evaluation requires more time. The authors note that eyeblink has

shown amygdala activation in response to emotionally laden pictures and threat of aversive

stimuli. They cite that the magnitude of startle reflex or threat can be decreased by a pleasant

stimulus. When they asked participants to suppress their emotions, magnitude of threat was

decreased; when asked to enhance their emotions toward negative stimulation, the magnitude

increased.

Makowski et al. (2017) demonstrate that attention to our experiences can provide the

hippocampus with a high-definition representation of the world—but if we are divided in our

attention due to emotional stimuli, our memory encoding and current functioning are hindered.

Willingness and attention are theoretically the glue which keeps the mind from distraction—this

link comes from a personal presence, or sense of self--presence requires a feeling of the self in

the world, and being fully engaged in that world. Makowski et al. (2017) presented sentences

about actions, which were better remembered by subjects if they were also acting them out. A

phenomenon called the enactment effect, movement can help us to be concrete in our feeling a

part of, and our engagement in action in the world.

Motor integration with memory encoding has shown enhanced memory in recall tests;

using the body and self to experience the world gives rise to enhanced memory (Makowski et al.,

2017). Lehmann and Herkenham (2011) also showed that exercise of any kind has physical and

emotional benefits, and can buffer the effects of stress. The neurological basis for resiliency lies
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within the ILC (infralimbic cortex), and extends to other brain centers which process emotions.

When these centers stay activated by good stress, they block processing negative emotions or

bad stress (Lehmann & Herkenham, 2011). Fear reaction, anxiety, and depression are not

expressed in rats which have this stimulation of the ILC--the model is said to translate well to

human depression and PTSD (Stress defeating effects of exercise, 2011). Lehmann and

Herkenham (2011) found that mice that had lived in EE (enriched environments where exercise

and novel experiences were freely available) were resistant to social defeat when moved into

overcrowded living conditions where they were bullied. In non-defeated mice, exposure to EE

increased cellular volume in limbic and striatal areas; in defeated mice (who were raised in

overcrowded conditions and bullied), exposure to EE was responded to as if they still lived in

their previous environment--they had developed “chronic social defeat stress” (Lehmann &

Herkenham, 2011, p. 6164). Socially defeated rodents experienced less immunological

expression in brain cells, and maladaptive behaviors including immobilization (Lehmann &

Herkenham, 2011), which appears to be like a freeze response to threat.

Consciousness interventions can begin with awareness, which is followed by

physiological adaptive responses (Kassam & Mendes, 2013). For example, having and

expressing gratitude has been found to increase feelings of well-being (Kassam & Mendes,

2013); viewing and describing the content of positive pictures led to self-described pleasure

(Kassam & Mendes, 2013); listening to favorite music can induce joy (Lynar, Cvejic, Schubert,

& Vollmer-Conna, 2017); gardening shows positive effects on depression, anxiety, QoL (quality

of life), and sense of community (Soga, Gaston, & Yamaurac, 2017); exposure to nature shows

higher immune-regulation and stress recovery (van den Bosch, 2017).

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The concept of well-being includes our ability to live comfortably within our skin,

skeletal and nervous systems. Franco et al. (2017) reviews definitions of well-being which

include being healthy, happy, accepting of self, autonomous, having positive relations with

others—extending to memory recall; ability to experience through the senses; ability to direct

attention. McCormick (2017) summarizes the impact of nature on children’s well-being

(increased social competence and confidence; cognitive and academic achievement) as correlated

with the quality and quantity of green space, as resulting in enhanced emotional regulation and

social relationships.

HRV provides a sensitive measure of well-being, and has been used to measure the

effects of music, showing regulation of arousal, improved sleep, and increased social ability

(Lynar et al., 2017). Recordings of nature sounds have shown changed perceptions, increased

tolerance of others, and enhanced interpersonal relationships (Franco et al., 2017). Franco et al.

(2017) elucidate how our senses can serve to either calm or excite. Humans have the same

sensibilities as all animals, but we no longer use them to provide a place for the self in nature. As

humanity has populated and built their own world, we have not had time to adapt or integrate

who we once were with our intellect, and this disconnect has sent people toward hospitals and

medications in search of control.

If physiological and emotional regulation can be achieved through seeing and hearing

nature (reducing stress, anxiety and hospital stays (Franco et al., 2017)), or through listening to

music (regulation of emotions and cognition, reduced need for of medication, and a sense of

empowerment in taking control of our own recovery and mental integration (Lynar et al.,

2017))—there are several natural interventions to offer for mental health improvement.
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