Alzheimer’s disease

Navigation: Finding the way to a goal

Navigation and Cognition

Discriminate different headings (need a sense of direction)

External directional reference: sun, magnetic field, landmarks

Internal directional reference: vestibular/inertial cues

Determine the correct heading (need a sense of position)

Path integration

Knowledge of familiar landmarks in home range

Geographical positioning system (e.g., position relative to

large-scale coordinate system defined by global geophysical features)--migratory birds, whales, turtles
 place cells = neurons in the
hippocampus that are
involved in spatial
navigation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gray739-emphasizing-hippocampus.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hippocampus.gif
How can the brain understand the spatial environment
based only on action potentials (spikes) of place cells?
How can the brain understand the spatial environment
based only on action potentials (spikes) of place cells?

_
Idea: Can recover
the topology of
the space
traversed by the
mouse by looking
only at the
spiking activity of
place cells.
Building blocks for a simplicial complex

1-simplex = edge = {v1, v2}

v1 v2 Note that the boundary of

e this edge is v2 + v1

2-simplex = triangle = {v1, v2, v3}

v2 Note that the boundary
of this triangle is the cycle
e1 e2 e1 + e 2 + e 3

v1 v3 = {v1, v2} + {v2, v3} + {v1,

e3
Hippocampal activation during spatial navigation: Landmark
Learning

Subjects (human) navigated through a virtual town on a computer screen. Their

brain activity was monitored with positron emission tomography (PET).
The regions with the greatest increases in activity were the right hippocampus and
the left caudate (part of the striatum).
This clearly implicates the hippocampus in the processing of spatial information.

The only spatial information available in this task is the spatial relations of objects in
the environment. These are known as landmarks and it is thought that learning the
relative position of landmarks is critical to spatial learning.
 Spatial navigation: Path Integration in insects
(a). An ant leaves its nest (N) and forages
with a very complicated path until it finds
some food (F). It then carries the food back
to the nest via a direct path. The ant must
somehow take into account all the twists and
turns it has made as well as the linear
distance it has traveled in any direction.
In mathematical terms this is easy to do. For
example, lets imagine that you know the
velocity of an object and its final position.
Velocity is the derivative of distance with
respect to time; so if you integrate velocity
you get back the distance traveled. This
information + the final position allows you to
Path integration means that the animal is
compute the initial position. The same
able to continuously compute its present
applies to rotations. Hence the term: path
location from its past trajectory and,as a
integration.
consequence,to return to the starting
point by choosing the direct route rather
than retracing its outbound trajectory
 Cognitive Map

One operational definition: a representation of spatial relationships

that enables computation of novel shortcuts between known locations
(O'Keefe & Nadel 1978. The hippocampus as a cognitive map)

Alternative hypotheses:
Route memory (A--> B already familiar)
Recognize familiar landmarks associated with goal, even if from novel
vantage point
Cognitive Aging

✤ Increase in wisdom
and expertise

✤ Speed of processing,
making decisions,
remembering may
decline

✤ Normal part of aging 12

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
✤ Not severe enough to interfere with daily life

✤ Increased risk of Alzheimer’s or dementia

✤ May be caused by external factors (vitamin B12 deficiency, depression)

13
4
Alzheimer’s Association. (2012) Mild Cognitive Impairment.
5
National Institute on Aging, About Alzheimer’s Disease: Mild Cognitive Impairment. Accessed June 10, 2015 from website:
https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/topics/mild-cognitive-impairment.
Cognitive Impairment

✤ Spans wide range of functioning

✤ Can occur as a result of

Alzheimer’s, dementia, stroke,

traumatic brain injury

14
Dementia

✤ Not normal aging

✤ Caused by damage to brain cells from disease or trauma

✤ Many dementias are progressive

15
Alzheimer’s Disease: Overview

✤ Progressive – symptoms
gradually worsen over
number of years

16
Alzheimer’s Disease: History

✤ Identified in 1906 by
Dr. Alois Alzheimer

✤ Examined brain of woman

who died after mental
illness

✤ Found abnormal clumps

(plaques) and tangled
17
fibers (tangles)
Alzheimer’s Disease:
Physical Changes
✤ Brain shrinks dramatically

o Nerve cell death

o Tissue loss

✤ Plaques: abnormal clusters

of protein fragments

✤ Tangles: twisted strands

18
of another protein
Alzheimer’s Disease: Causes
✤ Precise changes in brain largely unknown

✤ Probably develops as a result of complex interactions among:

o Age

o Genetics

o Environment

o Lifestyle

o Coexisting medical conditions 19

 Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)

✤ Rare disease

✤ Irreversible and progressive brain disease

✤ Neurodegenerative

✤ Decrease in cognitive skills

 AD
✤ Common cause of dementia among people above 65

✤ Estimated 44 million have AD

✤ One out four senior dies with AD

✤ 6th Leading cause of death in US

✤ Most common in Western Europe

✤ Least in Sub-Saharan Africa

 Cost of AD
 In the U.S. estimated at $ 226 billion in 2015

 Global cost at $ 605 billion, equivalent to 1 % worlds’ GDP

 Medicare and Medicaid expected to be ~ $ 154 billion in 2015

 9.9 million new cases for 2015, almost 30% higher than annual
number of new cases

 Regional Distributions (compared to 2012 estimates)

 Asia – 4.9 million (49%)
 Europe – 2.5 million (25 %)
 Americas – 1.8 million(18 %)
 Africa – 0.8 million (8 %)
AD ?

Image source Alzheimer’s community care

 AD

✤ A chronic neurodegenerative disease

✤ Short term memory loss

✤ Problems with language, disorientation, mood swings, loss

of motivation
MRI of AD

Image source: Dementia SOS, Colorado’s Dementia News and Resource center
Inside the human brain
 Various parts of the brain work for various activities

 Done by neurons communicating with each other

 Healthy neurons communicate with each other with

electrochemical transmitters

 Carry out metabolism and repair.

 AD disrupts all three processes

 Plaques and Tangles

Image source: Alzheimer’s Organization

Image source: University of Utah

 Plaques and Tangles

 Two abnormal structures

 β -amyloid plaques, dense deposits of protein and cellular material

 Accumulates outside and around nerve cells

 Neurofibrillary tangles, twisted fibers that build up inside the nerve

cells
β- amyloid Plaques
 Amyloid precursor protein (APP) precursor to amyloid
plaque

 APP sticks through the neuron membrane

 Enzymes cut the APP into fragments of protein (β amyloid

frag.)

 β amyloid fragments come together in clumps to form

plaques

 Clumps in turn affect the hippocampus and other areas of the

cerebral cortex
β- amyloid Plaques

Image source: wikipedia.org

β- amyloid Plaques

Image source: Alzheimer’s organization

Neurofibrillary Tangles

 Internal support structure ~ partly made up of

microtubules

 Protein tau helps in stabilizing microtubules

 Under AD, tau changes and causes microtubules to

collapse

 tau proteins clump together to form neurofibrillary

tangles
Neurofibrillary Tangles

Image source: Wikipedia.org

 AD and the Brain
 Affected regions shrink as nerve cells die.

 Change begins 10-20 years before symptoms appear

 Memory loss is the first sign of AD

 Next cerebral cortex shrinks

 Followed by memory loss, confusion, trouble handling money,

poor judgment, mood changes

 Next stage includes recognizing people, difficulty with language

and thoughts, wandering and repetitive statements, restlessness
and agitation
 Severe AD

 Extreme shrinkage of the brain

 Patients completely dependent on others for care

 Weight loss, seizures, skin infections, groaning, moaning, or

grunting

 Increased sleeping, loss of bladder and bowel control

Image source: NIH, Fact sheets
 Causes of AD

 Genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors

 Genetic links to AD ~ 19 genes involved

 Early-onset AD (30 to 60 years old) due to genes

 Late-onset AD (above 65) due to gene that produces

apolipoprotein E (ApoE)

 Which may result in formation of beta amyloids

Treatment for AD

Image source: Google images

 Treatment for AD

 Used to treat mild to moderate AD symptoms

 Aricept, Reminyl binds and inactivates reversibly the

cholinesterase, inhibiting hydrolysis of acetylcholine

 Increases acetylcholine conc. At cholinergic synapses

 Creating normalcy
Thank you
Neuroscience of Happiness
Why, in a world where people are more
connected than ever, are we still
lonely?
I JUST WANT THEM TO BE
HAPPY
What if, instead of avoiding, we seek
to understand?
WHAT MAKES US HAPPY?
What do schools teach?

Success

✤ Discipline

✤ Literacy

✤ Science

✤ Math

✤ Analytical skills

✤ Preparation for Workplace

Looking back, what skills did You miss out in my
own education?

✤ Emotion skills- managing disappointments,

frustrations, losses

✤ Accepting our individuality (strengths,

weaknesses)

✤ Practical skills- dating, cooking, managing money

 “Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and other great teachers
were all born with a brain built essentially like anyone
else’s. Then they used their minds to change their brains
in ways that changed history.”

~ Rick Hanson, Ph.D., the author of “Buddha’s Brain:

The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and
Wisdom”
Activity: What is Happiness?

Brainstorm
Happiness is the meaning and
the purpose of life,
The whole aim and end of
human existence.

Aristotle
 If you want happiness for an hour-take a nap
If you want happiness for a day-go fishing
If you want happiness for a month-get married
If you want happiness for a year-inherit a
fortune

If you want happiness for a lifetime-

help others
Chinese proverb
Three Pillars Of Positive Psychology
Individual Traits

BIO (Genetics)

SOCIAL PSYCHO (self)

(circumstance)

GROUPS/COMMUNITIES/ EXPERIENCES
INSTITUTIONS
 Emotional Chemistry
‘The brain is a supremely flexible organ that changes its chemistry in adaptive

response to what is going around it .‘ ( Nettle, 2005)

Every feeling we have is a ‘neuro-chemical event’

 Danger, stress and anxiety trigger the release of
adrenalin and cortisol
 These narrow your focus, sharpen your thinking and temporarily
increase your strength to enable you to run away fast

52
 Dopamine is the ‘motivation chemical’
 Its release into the bloodstream is energising
 It increases our ability to focus

 Serotonin is the ‘feel good’ chemical and is calming and

rewarding (MacConville 2008)
 Emotional Chemistry(cont.)
 Endorphins are small neuropeptides produced by the body

 They are natural opiates (endogenous morphine)

 They are released every time you laugh, relax and exercise
 Each release makes more connections in the brain, creating new

neural pathways
 They create more bonding in the brain so they expand cognitive
processes
 They enable broader, more flexible, more creative thinking
(MacConville 2008)
53

 We can increase our well-being by choosing to do activities that produce

endorphins
 In the same way, we can also make our thinking broader and more
flexible
Relaxation
Why study this?
✤ Improve well-being of everyone

✤ Understand optimal/best functioning

✤ Positive affect/feeling is more common than negative

affect

✤ Positive emotions protect against mental and physical

health problems

✤ Optimistic people perform better

n
ms
f
niti
e
fe-
sfa
on)
nd
ctiv

lan
ons
oni
ell,
08)

Happiness

Affect
ous
ive
ons,
s and
hat we
ently
ce and
ly
nise
well,
8)
THE SCIENCE OF SWB
58
Three routes to happiness
Seligman (2002)
✤ The Pleasant Life

✤ Having many pleasures in life and the skills to amplify them

✤ The Good Life

✤ Knowing your signature strengths, and recreating your life

(work, love, friendship, leisure, parenting) to use those
strengths to have more ‘flow’ in life

✤ The Meaningful Life

✤ Using your signature strengths to serve something that you

believe is larger than you are
Purpose of life

✤ Everybody wants to live

✤ Everyone wants to be happy ( nobody wants

unhappiness )

✤ Everyone wants peace ( nobody wants otherwise )

60

✤ Ultimate purpose of life is to enjoy and live happily

and make others happy…
Happiness Redefined
Happiness is:
A pleasant feeling
A positive evaluation or
judgment
A favorable explanation after
the fact
An optimistic expectation
61

A sense of inner peace

A sense of connectedness
A spiritual experience
 Happiness

• Increases positive emotions.

• Reduces the impact of negative emotions

62

Nettle, Happiness: The science behind your smile (2005)

Global Measures of Happiness
1. Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999)

2. Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985)

3. PANAS Questionnaire (Watson et al., 1985)

4. Meaning of Life Questionnaire (Steger et al., 2006)

5. Flow Experience Scale (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988)

Who is happy?
✤ It appears that most of us are
indeed happy (Myers, 2000).

✤ Five ways to wellbeing – two

recent studies, The Foresight
Report and Gallup’s most recent
world poll, have shown similar
finding. The findings suggest that
there are five necessary elements
for wellbeing
The Foresight report

✤ Connect (relationships)

✤ Be active

✤ Take notice

✤ Keep learning

✤ Give (random acts of kindness)

The Gallup organisation

✤ Career wellbeing

✤ Social wellbeing

✤ Financial wellbeing

✤ Physical wellbeing

✤ Community wellbeing
Activity: What makes us happy?
True or False
✤ Marriage ✤ True
✤ Children ✤ False
✤ Age ✤ False
✤ Income ✤ True
✤ Gender ✤ False
✤ Education ✤ True
✤ Religion ✤ True
Income and Happiness

• Does money make us happy? YES…well

a little bit.

• Individuals who live in countries with

high GDP, such as the USA, on average
score higher on wellbeing measures than
those living in countries with low GDP,
such as Togo (Deaton, 2008)
Income and Happiness
✤ In order to maintain balanced levels of wellbeing,
individuals must take home approximately $5000 per
month, anything more will do little to enhance
happiness.

✤ An extra $10,000 per annum will only bump up your

happiness levels by approximately 2 per cent
(Christakis & Fowler, 2009).
 Being around others
Relationships and Happiness
✤
enhances individual
wellbeing.

✤ Spending time in social

settings enhances levels of
wellbeing among both
introverted or extroverted,
(Froh et al., 2007).

✤ Happier people are more

likely to get married, while
reporting a happy marriage
Relationships and Happiness
✤ The relationship between children and marital satisfaction
shows high levels of life satisfaction at marriage, and then drops
at the birth of the first child

✤ The levels of life satisfaction also continue to drop throughout

childhood and adolescence, then returns to high levels when the
children leave the home

✤ Therefore, having children actually decreases levels of SWB

(Heffernon & Boniwell, 2011)
Work and Happiness

✤ An individual’s job perception can

influence wellbeing

✤ One third of employee’s perceive

work as a ‘calling orientation’

✤ Job orientation

✤ Career orientation

✤ Calling orientation
Health and Happiness
✤ Diener and Biswas-Diener
(2008) have categorised the
effects of SWB on physical
health into 3 groups;

✤ The likelihood a person

will contract a specific
illness

✤ How long the person will

live after contracting a life
threatening illness

✤ How long a persons

lifespan is
Religion and Happiness

✤ Religious people have reported

having slightly higher levels of
SWB than those who do not

✤ E.g. Belief in something higher,

spirituality, afterlife
Kindness, compassion, connection

Evolved capacity
Other Factors and Happiness
✤ Age

✤ Gender

✤ Education

✤ High levels of SWB were found in those with higher

educational status
✤Take a break. Have a.....
Global Happiness
✤ Evidence indicates that SWB levels of given countries are stable
(Inglehart & Klingemann, 2000)

✤ Social comparison theory

✤ gains and losses of different individuals in a nation result in no

noticeable shifts in happiness levels for the society as a whole

✤ The SWB and happiness of Americans has been examined since 1946
(Inglehart, Foa, Peterson & Welzel, 2008)
Global happiness
✤ Inglehart et al. (2008) found that a sense of control over
your life is conducive to happiness

✤ Democratic countries generally report higher

happiness levels

✤ Happy people are more likely to successfully

sustain a democracy
Activity: Happiest Countries
Answers for Activity
Activity 1
Activity 2
Costa Rica 1
A) Costa Rica

Denmark 2

Mexico 8
B) Denmark

Russia 73

C) Russia

India 115

China 125 D) China

Happiest Places on Earth
Country Score

1. Costa Rica 8.5

2. Denmark 8.34

3. Puerto Rico 8.32

4. Iceland 8.15

5. Switzerland 7.99

6. Canada 7.97

7. Finland 7.9

8. Mexico 7.87

9. Norway 7.82

10. Sweden 7.8

(World Database of Happiness, 2010)

Why is Denmark so Happy?
✤ For past 30 years research has consistently shown that
Danes tend to be happier (Inglehart & Klingleman,
2000)

✤ Welfare state

✤ Social equality
Gross National Happiness
✤ Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an alternative to
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means of
measuring progress within a country

✤ Increased wealth isn’t always an indicator of

happiness or progress

✤ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zqdqa4YNvI
Well-being and Global Policies
Happiness Boosting

Increasing Your Happiness

Happiness Boosting Activity

✤ In Your Groups

✤ You will be assigned an Intervention and administered

the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky &
Lepper, 1999)

✤ Score it and bring results to the top

Happiness Interventions

✤ Up until now, the focus has been on what exactly

happiness is and the kinds of things that make us
happy.

✤ Now, the focus is on how to INCREASE happiness or

in other words; “Happiness Boosting”.
Happiness Boosting
✤ Happiness “Boosting” usually happens in the form of
interventions

✤ Happiness Boosting interventions are important for two reasons:

✤ to make people generally happier and,

✤ to allow happy people to develop other positive characteristics

✤ (Snyder & Lopez, 2005)

Past Happiness Interventions

✤ Fordyce (1977)

✤ Found that people tend to become

happier when they mimic the
positive characteristics of people
they perceive are happier than
them
Past Happiness Interventions

✤ Seligman, Reivich, Jaycox &

Gillham (1995)

✤ Found that children who were at

risk of developing depressive and
mood disorders were significantly
less depressed after training in
optimistic thinking and problem
solving
Recent Happiness Interventions

✤ Lyubomirsky (2007)

✤ The How of Happiness: A

Practical Guide to Getting

the Life You Want

 12 Happiness Activities:
Lyubomirsky (2007)
✤ Expressing Gratitude

✤ Cultivating Optimism

✤ Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison

✤ Practicing Acts of Kindness

✤ Nurturing Social Relationships

✤ Developing Strategies for Coping

✤ Learning to Forgive

✤ Increasing “Flow” Experiences

✤ Savoring Life’s Joys

✤ Committing to your Goals

✤ Practicing Religion and Spirituality

✤ Taking Care of your Body (Meditation/ Acting like a Happy Person)

Recent Happiness Interventions
™

✤ Live Happy iPhone application

(Signal Patterns & Lyubomirsky,
2008)

✤ Designed based on positive

psychological research findings in
the area of happiness boosting
Recent Happiness Interventions

✤ Walls (2010) launched a marketing

campaign about sharing to the
world the link of ice cream and
happiness

✤ http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=V5bs_pIFuto
Ice Cream and Happiness
Van Oudenhove et al. (2011)
✤ 12 healthy, non-obese volunteers
had their brains scanned using
FMRI

✤ Each had a gastric feeding tube

positioned

✤ Listened to pieces of sad or

neutral classical music while they
viewed images of human facial
expressions depicting either sad
or neutral emotion
Van Oudenhove et al. (2011)

✤ The brain's responses to sadness

were significantly reduced when
the fatty solution was infused into
the stomach

✤ Respondents also reported less

hunger and a better mood when
the fatty solution was given
Discussion
✤ Think, Pair, Share

Q . What did you find most interesting/important while learning about

happiness?

✤ Write down one or two points

✤ Discuss with the person beside you

✤ Share with the class

Questions to Think About

1. What is happiness, SWB & Positive Affect?

2. Can happiness be measured? Give examples.

3. Is happiness signified by an individual’s global evaluation

of his or her life, or is it the aggregate of many moments, as
measured by ESM?

4. What factors influence happiness?

5. Can happiness be acquired?

6. What happiness interventions are available?

Further Reading
✤ Articles

✤ Cohen et al. (2003). Emotional Style and the Susceptibility to the Common
Cold. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(4):652-7

✤ Books

✤ Heffron, K. and Boniwell, I. (2011). Happiness and Subjective Wellbeing

across Nations. In: Positive Psychology Theory, Research and Applications.
p44 - 75.

✤ Websites

✤ www.authentichappiness.org

✤ http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/65/4/652.full.pdf+html
 Social Psychology, 36, 917-927.

References
Diener, E. and Biswas-Diener, R. (2008) Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Boston, MA:Blackwell Publishing.

Fordyce, M.W. (1977). Development of a program to increase personal happiness. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 24, 511-521.

Fujita, F., & Diener, E. (2005). Life satisfaction set point: Stability and change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 158-164.

Heffron, K, and Boniwell, I. "Happiness and Subjective Wellbeing Across Nations." Positive psychology: Theory, Research and Applications.
Buckingham: Open University Press, 2011. 44 - 75

Inglehart, R. and Klingemann, H-D. (2000) ‘Genes, culture, democracy and happiness’, in Diener and Suh (2000).

Inglehart, R., Foa, R., Peterson, C., & Welzel, C. (2008). Development, freedom and rising happiness. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3,
Thank you for listening!
Cognitive Neuroscience

Social Cognition
Overview

✤ Anatomical Substrates of Social Cognition

✤ Deficits

✤ Know Thyself

✤ Theory of Mind: Understanding the Mental States of

Others

✤ Social Knowledge
What’s in a Face?

12/10/2023
Do I Look Like a Liar to You?

✤ We make judgements about other people based on

seeing their face for only 100 msec.

✤ Faces can be classified by the factors of trustworthiness

and dominance.
12/10/2023

✤ Where a face falls on these scales can be manipulated

by changing the features of the face.
 Developing Social Intelligence– Worldview

Each of us has unique way of seeing the world. Our worldview is made up of the
collection of our personal philosophies, beliefs, perspectives and life experiences. Your
thinking preferences are one important source among many that inform your
worldview.

“We don’t see

things as they
are, we see
things as we
are.”
– Anais Nin
Social Cognition

✤ The study of social cognition is a central topic in social

psychology.

✤ The assumption is that people are generally trying to

form accurate impressions of the world and do so
much of the time.

✤ Because of the nature of social thinking, however,

people sometimes form erroneous impressions.
ON AUTOMATIC PILOT: LOW-
EFFORT THINKING
✤ People often size up a new situation
very quickly: they figure out who is
there, what is happening, and what
might happen next.

✤ Often these quick conclusions are

• You can tell the difference between a college
correct.
classroom and a cocktail party without having to
think about it.

Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Anatomical Substrates of Social Cognition
Deficits in Social Cognition

✤ Autism Spectrum Disorders

✤ Schizophrenia
Characteristics of Autism
✤ Infants:

Avoid contact & fail to

anticipate being picked up

✤ First Few Years of

Development:

Might develop some skills such

was walking or talking quicker
than normal but other
developments are considerably
delayed
Characteristics of Autism (cont’d.)

✤ Toddlers:
✤ Abnormal behaviors

✤ Start to see social

dysfunctions

✤ Lack of imaginary play

✤ Avoidance of eye
contact
Judging the Self
Moral Decisions

✤ Neuroeconomics

✤ The trolley problem

An Emotional Theory of Mind

✤ This is the ability to infer the emotional state of

another person.

✤ Empathy involves generating an appropriate response

to the emotional state of another.
12/10/2023

✤ Emotional contagion is the tendency of emotional

states to evoke similar emotions in others.
Empathy, Sympathy, and
Compassion

✤ Empathy includes the emotional state of the other

person as well as one’s own emotional state.

Sympathy is consciously sharing the emotional state of

12/10/2023
✤
someone else.
Empathy, Sympathy, and
Compassion

12/10/2023
Neural Mechanisms of Emotional
Mimicry and Contagion
✤ Pupil size is effected by emotional states.

✤ The pupil size of an observer mimics the pupil size

of the person they are observing.

✤
12/10/2023 Small changes in pupil size are associated with
changes in activity in the amygdala, superior
temporal sulcus, insula, and anterior cingulate.
Neural Mechanisms of Empathy,
Sympathy, and Antipathy
✤ For women in romantic relationships

✤ Researchers applied painful stimulation to her hand.

✤ This activated primary and secondary

somatosensory cortex and the anterior insula and
anterior cingulate cortex.
12/10/2023

✤ When she observed the stimulation applied to her

partner’s hand, this activated the anterior insula and
anterior cingulate cortex.
Mirror Neurons
Monkey See, Monkey Do…
Monkey Feel?
 Amygdala
✤ The amygdala (“almond”) is thought to have many
important roles, including fear conditioning, memory
consolidation, and in the generation of important emotional
responses, which help the brain to process memories that
are key to social learning

✤ The amygdala has long been suspected as a source of some

concern in autism

✤ More recently, David Amaral at the UC Davis MIND

Institute (Journal of Neuroscience, 2006) found that men
and boys with autism have fewer neurons in the amygdala

✤ One possibility is that there are always fewer neurons in the

amygdala of people with autism. Another possibility is that
autism is a degenerative process occurs later in life and
leads to neuron loss.
Amygdala: Putting It All Together
✤ Most recent theories suggest that social fear in autism may
initially trigger a hyperactive, abnormally enlarged amygdala,
which eventually gives way to a toxic adaptation that kills
amygdala cells and shrinks the structure (Davidson, 2006)

✤ In Davidson’s recent study, those in the autism group who had a

small amygdala were significantly slower at identifying happy,
angry, or sad facial expressions and spent the least time looking
at eyes relative to other facial regions. Autistic subjects with the
smallest amygdalae took 40 percent longer than those with the
largest fear hubs to recognize such emotional facial expressions,
and those with the largest amygdalae spent about four times
longer looking at eyes than those with the smallest. Eye fixation
did not correlate with amygdala volume among 24 control
subjects.
6. Autistic Patients Excel Creatively

✤ While those with ASD may not act or communicate like the majority of
people, research has shown they can have superior creative abilities,
according to The Guardian (U.K.), which noted, “Scientists found that
people with the developmental condition were far more likely to come up
with unique answers to creative problems.”

✤ Despite the high level of creative thought, the disorder makes it difficult
for those with autism to secure employment (because of “socially
crippling” traits), noted the article, which also mentions that proponents of
this idea are lobbying employers to consider hiring those with “learning
disabilities”.
✤ AI and Neuroscience drive each
other
AI and Neuroscience

Recent artificial intelligence advancements are taking the

media by storm by performing impressive feats such as:

Reliable object recognition that such as Tesla’s

self-driving cars

Playing video games to

outperform the best StarCraft players

Detecting breast cancer

faster and better than doctors
A Neuron

133
 How do our brains work?
 A processing element

This link is called a synapse. The strength of the signal that

reaches the next neuron depends on factors such as the amount of
neurotransmitter available.
 How do ANNs work?
• Now, let us have a look at the model of an artificial neuron.
Three types of layers: Input, Hidden, and
Output
A brain analogue - ANN

These networks consist of layers of nodes that are analogous to neurons. Nodes in
the input layer are connected to nodes in a hidden layer by a series of
mathematical weights that act like the synapses between neurons.

The hidden layer is similarly connected to an output layer. Input data for a task
such as facial recognition could be an array of numbers that describe each pixel
in an image of a face in terms of where it falls on a 100-point scale from white
to black, or whether it is red, green or blue. Data are fed in, the hidden layer
then multiplies those values by the weights of the connections, and an answer
comes out

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus

Electroencephalography (EEG)
✤ Hans Berger recorded the first human EEGs in 1924.

✤ Literal meaning of EEG = “Writing of the electrical activity of the brain”

Hans Berger (1873–1941)

Figure 1: An early EEG recording performed by Hans Berger. Prior to the arrow the subject
is performing a mental arithmetic task. After the task stops, alpha returns. (Niedermeyer,
1997)

138 BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus

 How is EEG generated?

Figure 2: Think of synchronized EEG signals as audience

Synaptic Neurotransmitter Cell membrane
✤ 85 billion
transmission neurons in release
the human brain. voltage change
clapping in unison.

✤ EEG devices measure the synchronized activity of the pyramidal neurons in the cortical brain regions.

 Are oriented perpendicular to the cortical surface.

 Unique orientation of cells generates a stable electrical field.

139 BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus

 EEG~ Nature

✤ Non-invasive* method

✤ Record electrical activity of the brain along the scalp

✤ Voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current within the

neurons of the brain

✤ Clinical def. ~ recording brain’s spontaneous electrical

activity over a period of time

* Invasive in case of deep brain stimulation signal captures

 EEG~ Nature

✤ Most often used in epilepsy abnormalities in EEG readings

✤ Sleep disorder, Coma, encephalopathies or Brain death

✤ Two types of potentials that are used studies

 Evoked Potentials

 Event Related Potentials

 Evoked potentials

 Electrical potential recorded after a stimulus is presented

 Distinct from spontaneous potentials

 Amplitude tend to be low

 Ranging from les than a μV to several μV

 Signal is time-locked to the stimulus

 Event related potentials

 Electrical potential recorded when specific event occurs

 Events include – Sensory, Cognitive or Motor

 A.k.a. electrophysiological response to stimulus

 Volume conduction of neurons

 Reflects the summation of synchronous activity

 Deep brain activity difficult to detect.

 EEG Signal ~ Processing

✤ Electrical activity can be detected, but does not completely

describe the action and interaction of the neurotransmitter

✤ Neurotransmitters

 Action potential results in the release of

neurotransmitters

 That then affect the electrical activity of

adjacent cells.
 EEG types

• Measures electrical activity from the scalp.

• Utility: neuronal communication in brain through
electrical impulses.
• Typical EEG signal of a human adult is measured
in microvolts (µV).

Figure 4: Depth electrodes Figure 5: Non-invasive EEG, the

inserted into temporal lobe cap is worn with electrodes that
regions (amygdala and touch the scalp.
hippocampus) Source
Source

Importance of Non-invasive EEG:

• High Temporal Resolution.
• Direct measure of neural activity.
• lightweight, portable.

145

BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus

 Contd..
EEG Data Acquisition
• Electrodes attached to the scalp to pick up
brain-generated electrical potentials.
• Electrodes are small metals discs covered with
Silver Chloride (AgCl) coating.
• AgCl = conductive gel/paste.
Figure 6: 10-20 electrode placement system.
Source
146
Electrodes arrays and placement
• 10-20 System (American Encehalographic Society,
1994; Oostenveld & Praamstra 2001)
• Electrodes placed at 10% and 20% points along
longitude and latitude lines.
Figure 7: Lateral view of the 10-20 electrode placement
system.
Source
BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus
EEG records differences in voltage: the way in which the signal is viewed can be set up in a
variety of ways called montages

Bipolar montage: Each waveform in the EEG represents the difference in voltage between two adjacent
electrodes, e.g. ‘F3-C3’ represents the difference in voltage between channel F3 and neighbouring channel C3. This
is repeated across the whole scalp through the entire array of electrodes.

Reference montage: Each waveform in the EEG represents the difference in voltage between a specific
active electrode and a designated reference electrode. There is no standard position for the reference, but usually a
midline electrode is chosen so as not to bias the signal in any one hemisphere. Other popular reference signals
include an average signal from electrodes placed on each ear lobe or mastoid.
10 /20 % system of EEG electrode placement
EEG Signals

✤ Mixture of several underlying base frequencies.

✤ These frequencies reflect cognitive, affective, or attentional states.

✤ Research classifies these frequencies as shown in Figure below:

Figure 3: EEG activity is measured in the form of frequencies.

Source

151 BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus

 Neurological Signal Processing
 Basic chain of operations in EEG signal analysis are

 Acquisition of data including quality control of data in order

to remove or avoid artifacts

 Central processing

 Presentation of results, graphs – numerical analysis.

 Neurological Signal Processing
 Brain Deterministic or Stochastic

 Neither fully deterministic nor fully stochastic

 Complex nonlinear system

 Showing complicated emergent properties

Ex. Consciousness

 FFT may work for short time intervals for linear analysis

 Linear systems may have small range of applicability

 Inappropriate to use a linear system to deal with highly

nonlinear complexity of the brain.

Perfect linear system ≈ ideal gas

Applications: Brain Fingerprinting

The fundamental difference between the perpetrator

of a crime and an innocent person is that the
perpetrator, having committed the crime, has the
details of the crime stored in his memory, and the
innocent suspect does not.

This is what Brain Fingerprinting testing detects

scientifically, the presence or absence of specific
information.
Current Methods: Lie Detection
Modern polygraphy: uses physiological changes in
the peripheral nervous system (PNS) measure
deception

1. Skin conductance changes (sweating)

2. Blood pressure

3. Respiration

4. Heart rate
“Neurotechnological Lie
Detection” (NTLD):
Measurements of blood flow or electrical impulses in the brain to
identify distinct indicators of deceptive communication.
Measure lying more directly by measuring brain activity rather
than second-order indicators like pulse or respiration.
Defining Brain Fingerprinting
✤ Scientific technique to determine whether or not specific
information is stored in an individual's brain

✤ Relevant words, pictures or sounds are presented to a

subject by a computer in a series with stimuli

✤ The brainwave responses measured using a patented

headband equipped with EEG sensors

✤ P300- Specific, measurable brain response

✤ emitted by the brain of a subject who has the relevant information
stored in his brain
How Does it Work?

✤ measurements are recorded in fractions of a second

after the stimulus is presented, before the subject is
able to formulate or control a response

✤ Dr. Farwell discovered that the P300 was one aspect

of a larger brain-wave response that he named and
patented, a MERMER (memory and encoding
related multifaceted electroencephalographic
response)
✤ Brain responses were recorded from the midline
frontal, central, and parietal scalp locations,
referenced to linked mastoids (behind the ear), and
from a location on the forehead to track eye
movements

✤ At the end of each test, subjects were given a written

list of all stimulus items and asked to mark each
item as noteworthy, somewhat noteworthy, or
irrelevant – those marked were thrown out
 Applications

✤ National security

✤ Medical diagnosis

✤ Alzheimer’s Disease

✤ Advertising

✤ Crimial justice system

Thank you
Overview
✤ What Is an Emotion?

✤ Neural Systems Involved in Emotion Processing

✤ Categorizing Emotions

✤ Theories of Emotion Generation

✤ The Amygdala

✤ Interactions Between Emotion and Other Cognitive Processes

✤ Get a Grip! Cognitive Control of Emotion

✤ Other Areas, Other Emotions

✤ Unique Systems, Common Components

Emotion

✤ How do you feel?

✤ How do you know what you are feeling?

Emotion

✤ What determines how you are feeling?

Categorizing Emotions
✤ William James

✤ Charles Darwin

✤ 3 Categories:

✤ Basic Emotion

✤ Complex Emotion

✤ Dimensions of Emotion
Theories of Emotion Generation
✤ James Lange

✤ The bear (perception of stimulus) → physiologic

reaction

✤ Adrenaline is released, causing increased heart and

respiratory rates, sweating, and fight-or-flight
response → automatic, nonconscious interpretation of
the physiological response (my heart is beating fast, I
am running; I must be afraid) = subjective emotional
feeling (scared!)
Theories of Emotion Generation
✤ Cannon Bard

✤ Fast

✤ Cortex (interpretation: → scared, dangerous situation)

✤ The bear → thalamus

✤ Slower

✤ Hypothalamus → emotional reaction (sympathetic nervous system: fight

or flight)
Theories of Emotion Generation

✤ Appraisal

✤ He sees the bear → cognition (A quick risk–benefit

appraisal is made: A dangerous wild animal is
lumbering toward me and showing baring its teeth →
risk–benefit = high risk–no foreseeable benefit → I am
in danger!) → feels the emotion (he’s scared!) →
response (fight or flight).
Theories of Emotion Generation

✤ Evolutionary Psychology

✤ They see the bear → possible stalking and ambush situation is

detected (a common scenario of evolutionary significance) and
automatically activates a hardwired program (that has evolved
thanks to being successful in these types of situations) that directs all
of the subprograms.
Theories of Emotion Generation
✤ Constructivist Approach

✤ Core affect

✤ Sensory input (she sees the bear) → physiologic response (her

heart races, she feels aroused in a negative way) → her brain
calculates all previous bear encounters, episodes of racing
heart, degree of arousal, valence, and you name it →
categorizes the current reaction in reference to all the past ones
and ones suggested by her culture and language → ah, this is
an emotion, and I call it fear.
Amygdala
✤ Basolateral nuclear complex

✤ Strengthens encoding

✤ Centromedial complex

✤ Enhanced top-down attention and memory storage

✤ Smallest complex

✤ Olfactory memory
Terminology of Conditioning

✤ Unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS)

✤ Elicits a reflexive response without learning.

✤ Unconditioned response (UR or UCR)

✤ The response that occurs with a US, typically a

reflex, emotion or drug state

✤ Involuntary and automatic.

More Terminology
✤ Neutral stimulus

✤ A stimulus not capable of producing an

unconditioned response (before learning).

✤ Conditioned stimulus (CS)

✤ A previously neutral stimulus that has acquired the

ability to evoke a response.

✤ Conditioned response (CR)

✤ The learned response, often similar to the UCR, an

involuntary reflex, emotion or drug state.
Average and Trustworthy

✤ Said et al. (2010)

Emotion Regulation
✤ Processes That Influence the Type of Emotions We
Have, When We Have Them, and How We Express and
Experience Them
Gross Model of Emotion Response
Tendencies

✤ Antecedent-focused Emotion Regulation

✤ Response-focused Emotion Regulation

Gross Model of Emotion Response
Tendencies
“We are being judged by a
new yardstick; not just how
smart we are, or by our
training and expertise, but
also how well we handle
ourselves and each other.”

Daniel Goleman, Ph.D.

Working with
Emotional Intelligence
Coping with Emotions
✤ We typically deal with emotions one of four ways:

✤ 1) exaggerating the emotion so that we are overwhelmed by them and lose control;

✤ 2) accepting the emotion and not try to regain control;

✤ 3) substituting the emotion with something more comfortable like distractions; or

✤ 4) managing the emotion through self-awareness.

 Personal Benefits of
Emotional Intelligence
• Greater career success

• Stronger personal relationships

• Increased optimism and confidence

• Better health
Professional Benefits of
Emotional Intelligence
• Effective leadership skills

• Improved communication

• Less workplace conflict

• Better problem solving skills

• Increased likelihood of promotion

Self-awareness
What is the connection?

✤ http://www.lifetrack.com/lifetrack/en/concepts/turning_mindwheel.jsp
“If you understand your own feelings
you get a really great handle
on how you’re going to interact
and perform with others…

So one of the first starting

points is, ‘what’s going on
inside of me?’”
 Practicing Self-Awareness:

• Awareness of our own emotional states is the

foundation of all the E.I. skills.

• Learn to “tune-in” to your emotions – they can give

you valid information about your responses to stressful
situations.

• Recognize the importance of emotions even in

“technical” fields.
Self-regulation
“If we are in a heightened state
of agitation or anger we cannot
make good decisions,
we cannot reason well.”

Christine Casper
Communication, Motivation
& Management Inc.
Sometimes when you are angry with someone, it helps to sit
down and think about the problem.
Empathy
“If people will stop for a moment and put
themselves in another person’s shoes…
it will help them modify their
own behavior. It will help
them develop relationships
with those people.”

Darryl Grigg, Ed.D.

Co-Developer,
American Express Emotional Competence Program
Effective Relationships
Increasing and Decreasing Emotion
Cognitive Neuroscience

Chapter 7

Attention
Overview

✤ The Anatomy of Attention

✤ The Neuropsychology of Attention

✤ Models of Attention

✤ Neural Mechanisms of Attention and Perceptual

Selection

✤ Attentional Control Networks

taking possession by the
mind, in clear and vivid
William
form, of one out of what
James
seem several
simultaneously possible
objects or trains of
thought. Focalization,
concentration of
consciousness are of its
essence. It implies
withdrawal from some
things in order to deal
effectively with others,
and is a condition which
has a real opposite in the
Attention

✤ Definition

• Attention is the process by which the mind chooses from among the
various stimuli that strike the senses at any given moment.
Attentional Resources

✤ Selective attention

• Top down

• Bottom up
Neuropsychology of Attention
When Attention Fails

✤ Bálint’s Syndrome
Unilateral Spatial Neglect

✤ Why does damage on the right side appear to result in

more severe outcomes?
Neuropsychological Tests of
Attention

✤ Line Bisection
Neuropsychological Tests of
Attention

✤ Gaze Bias
Models of Attention

✤ Voluntary

✤ Reflexive

✤ Overt

✤ Covert
Divided Attention

✤ Cocktail Party Effect

How we Experience Attention

✤ Stream of consciousness -- we learn and remember

what we attend to.

✤ Paying attention results in a feeling of mental effort.

✤ Can be directed internally but also pulled (attracted)

by external events.

✤ Varies with arousal and fatigue.

✤ Studied by looking at response competition.

Auditory Attention

✤ The response competition comes from having two

ears.

✤ Dichotic listening task – uses “shadowing.”

✤ Two different messages are presented, one to each

ear. Subjects are asked to speak what they hear.

✤ People can attend to only one message at a time.

Broadbent’s Filter Theory
✤ People do not remember the content of the unattended
ear.

✤ Broadbent’s filter theory proposed that filtering occurs

early in processing based on physical characteristics
(pitch, ear).

✤ Neural evidence supports the ability to select one

ear to listen to.

✤ Cocktail party effect – attention switches based on

content of unattended ear.
Dichotic Listening
ERP in Dichotic Listening
Early versus Late Selection Models

✤ Early ✤ Late
Competition and the Scale of Objects

✤ Does Size Matter?

Perception
The process by which we gather and interpret
information about the outside world via the senses.
Can you find the owl?

From Delphine
Chedru
Spot It! Find the H
Can you find the bee?

Which is
harder to see?

Why?
Searching: Feature Integration
Theory

✤ Targets

✤ Distracters
Feature integration theory

• Used to explain visual search, in which we attempt to

locate a target object hidden among distractors.

• During the preattentive stage, features pop out

effortlessly. Attention is not required. Search occurs
in parallel.

• During the focused attention stage features are

combined together to create object representations.
Attention is required. Search is serial.
Visual Search

Find the dark “T”.

Parallel search
Serial search
Find the K

RRR
KRR
RRR
Find the Gray Letter

L L
L L
L
L L
L
Find the Gray Letter
T T TTT T T
T T T T
T T T T
TT T T T
T T T
T T TT T T T T
T T T
T T T T TTT T
T T
Find the 8

SS
SSS
S8
SS
Find the Horizontal 8

S S8 SS 8 8

S S
SS
S 8
8 8 S SS S
S
S

SS SS
S
88S S S 8 S
S S 8
8S 8
8
8
S

S
8 S 8
S

S
How Does Relevance Impact Search?
Feature Attention

✤ Stimulus Features

✤ Spatial Attention versus Feature Attention

✤ Role of Salience
Reflexive versus Voluntary Attention
Feature Activation in the Visual
Cortex
Competition
Attentional Control Networks
Cognitive Neuroscience 4e
Lecture Slides
Gazzaniga, Ivry, Mangun

© 2014, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.