I.

SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE AND EMOTION

The social and emotional aspects of the brain are inexorably linked, the adaptive

significance of emotions being closely linked to their social value, and nearly all

social interactions produce affective responses.

Social and emotional processes are important for understanding many of the most

basis aspects of cognition and learning.

Across species, the amygdala is a critical structure in the neuroscience of emotion;

however, there is an increasing interest and emphasis on how the amygdala interacts

with other brain circuits and systems to promote the adaptive expression of emotion.

Hartley, Moscarello, Quirk and Phelps (p. 697) describe a range if techniques that

can be used to control fear across species. A key component of the control of fear is

the interaction of amygdala and prefrontal cortex. The circuitry is also highlighted in

the model of self-regulation described by Wagner and Heatherton. In their model,

there is a dynamic tension between domain-general control mechanisms and context-

specific cortical emotion and reward circuits. Self-regulation fails when there is loss

of connectivity or balance between these regions.

One of the hallmarks of developmental neuroscience is that developmental trajectory

if not uniform across brain regions. Somerville and Casey (p. 731) explore how brain

development alters emotional reactivity and regulation. Specifically, they highlight

adolescence as a time period when there is both asymmetry in the development of the
 brain systems of emotion expression and its control, and also tremendous change.

Gee and Whalen explore how developmental changes interact with the amygdalas

primary role in responding to uncertainty and learning to predict biologically

relevant outcomes. They demonstrate how exploring blood oxygen level-dependent,

or BOLD, responses to biologically relevant stimuli or facial expressions can inform

our understanding of neural changes linked to psychopathology.

Koscik, White, Chapman, and Anderson (p. 767) discuss the link between

perception and emotion. They discuss the bidirectional nature of the relationship

between early sensory processes and higher-order knowledge regarding social and

emotional interactions.

Ambady and Freeman (p. 777) examine the interplay of cultural and genetic factors

on the neural bases of human perception. They describe evidence to suggest that

cultural experiences influence both basic and perceptual and attention mechanisms as

well as higher-order domains, such as emotional expression recognition and theory

of mind.

Across these diverse approaches, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to

consider the interaction of networks of activity rather than the specific activations

in discrete brain regions. This trend is likely to continue as neural models of social

and affective processes gain the necessary specificity and complexity that

characterise social and emotional processes.

 The Cognitive Neuroscience of Fear

The complex social and emotional cognition characteristic of human experience relies

upon more basic forms of learning that enable us to assign affective value to stimuli.

Our neuroscientific understanding of these associative learning processes has grown

out of decades of detailed research in animal models using Pavlovian conditioning

paradigms.

Review the basic learning mechanisms through which we assign negative value to

environmental stimuli.

Examine various means by which we control the expression of these learned fear

associations. Focus specifically on four distinct types of regulatory processes:

extinction, active coping, cognitive emotion regulation, and reconsolidation.

[1] The growth of neuroscience over the last few decades has brought a dramatic

increase in the study of affective and social cognition. The foundation of much of

this work lies in research in animal models, which has yielded a detailed

neuroscientific account of the associative mechanisms through which we evaluate

and anticipate salient environmental events.

[2] Through recent work examining more complex social and emotional cognition, it has

become increasingly clear that these higher-order processes recruit a common

underlying neural circuitry as these basic forms of evaluative learning.

a. On the one hand, this convergence is intuitive: associative learning imbues

the world with emotional significance, rendering objectively neutral stimuli

ominous or alluring, evoking thoughts and feelings, and motivating our

actions and decisions. Much of this emotional experience stems from social

interaction. Conversely, social cognition is intrinsically emotional, as our

thoughts about other people are laden with learned evaluations.

b. On the other hand, these overlapping substrates of both basic and complex

learning and behaviour present a vexing puzzle, challenging scientists to

understand how these shared neural circuits give rise to the profound

complexity of human social and emotional experience.

1) Description of basic learning mechanisms through which we assign negative value to

environmental stimuli;

2) The means by which we control the expression of these learned associations;

3) The neurocircuitry underlying these processes.

The survival of an organism depends on its ability to detect and evade environmental

threat. Cues and contexts that signal danger must be learned rapidly so that serious threats

can be anticipated with few actual encounters. These memories should also be long-
lasting A perilous situation might be infrequent, but an organism should not need to learn

about a previous threat anew.

Across a range of species, the neurocircuitry governing fear learning represents an

evolutionarily conserved solution to these shared environmental demands, enabling the

rapid formation of persistent fear memories. The expression of these learned fears diverts

the organisms cognitive, behavioural, and physiological resources towards the detection

and response to threat. While this recruitment of resources confers adaptive benefit in the

face of danger, it also means that its expression in the absence of imminent threat is

costly. In humans, excessive fear that persists even in safe contexts is a cardinal feature of

anxiety disorders. Thus, the failure to regulate the expression of fear in accordance with

the true presence of environmental threat may be a critical factor underlying

psychopathology.