Social Judgment

Article:The Human Amygdala in Social Judgment
Authors:RalphAdolphs,DanielTranel&AntonioR.Damasio
Published in Nature

This article discusses the role of the amygdala in social judgment, specifically in judging others based on their trustworthiness and approachability. Subjects were asked to rate pictures of people based on these two qualities. Participants with lesions in the amygdala rated the negative faces more positively than the controls.
In addition, the researchers also wanted to test how the participants judged people based on verbal descriptions without looking at a picture. The brain damaged patients made normal judgments, meaning that lesion patients’ visual processing is affected. This suggests that people with damaged amygdalas have a problem retrieving information from past experiences, which would be triggered by a visual stimulus.
It is interesting that the amygdala is involved in visual processing of emotional cues as well as in fear. It makes sense that people with damaged amygdalas would not pick up on negative faces as easily because displays of fear and negativity are somewhat similar. Is there a different part of the brain that would cause brain-damaged patients to have different judgments to verbal descriptions of people?

Moral Decision Making and Brain Lesion

Article: Brain-damaged people give insights into morality
Published by CNN

After talking about moral decision making in class today, I was interested in finding an article that discussed it. It has been found that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in social emotions like empathy and guilt, and recent findings also show its role in making judgments in life-or-death situations. The study tested six people with brain damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, twelve with damage to other brain regions, and twelve who were healthy. The results showed that the brain lesion patients responded similarly to the others when having to decide between what’s right and wrong, but when death was involved, their answers changed.
People with brain lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex were more likely to choose the option that killed one person in order to save a group of others. They even said they would kill their own child to save other people’s lives.
It seems like people with damage to this area are operating in a logical manner, based on what they think is better for the future. The fact that they would choose to give up their own child’s life to save another’s is an extremely interesting point. How can we test what goes on in their minds, leading them to make such decisions? I wonder if the same answers apply when someone is just being harmed, not necessarily killed.

TMS and identifying emotion

Article: Transcranial magnetic stimulation of medial−frontal cortex impairs the processing of angry facial expressions
Authors: C. J. Harmer, K. V. Thilo, J. C. Rothwell & G. M. Goodwin
Published in Nature Neuroscience


It has been shown that different neural circuits of the brain are linked to recognizing different emotions. In this article, participants were asked to distinguish between angry and neutral faces, male and female faces, and happy and neutral faces. Transcranial magnetic stimulation over the medial-frontal cortex impairs the processing of angry emotion, but not happiness. In fact, TMS had opposite effects in recognizing the two emotions. After TMS, participants responded slower when trying to identify anger and faster when trying to identify happiness, yet there were no differences in accuracy.
Perhaps participants reacted faster to displays of happy emotion because it is more ideal. As humans, we would rather be happier than sad, and we have learned how seeing other people happy makes us happy. Maybe the tracks in the brain that are responsible for recognizing anger are not as easily activated because we subconsciously don’t want them to be activated.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Article:
Toward a Neurobiology of Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Authors: Sanjaya Saxena, MD, and Jamie D. Feusner, MD
Published in Primary Psychology

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is the preoccupation of physical appearance or the obsession with a body part that leads to serious anxiety and distress. Yes, we all have our insecurities about appearance, but BDD takes these to the extreme. Patients often have distorted views of their appearances. Many of these disorders involve delusional beliefs. BDD is often paired with or causes other types of disorders, including eating disorders, mood disorders, social anxiety disorders, and personality disorders.
The article asserts that various types of body dysmorphic disorders may be related to brain lesions. Research has found that the right temporal lobe and the posterior parietal lobe is involved in body perception, meaning lesions in these areas produce symptoms of BDD such as abnormal visual perception, distortion of body image, depressed mood, anxiety, somatic preoccupations, and delusion. One man with right temporal lobe epilepsy developed a belief that he smelled so bad that everyone around him could notice it.
I find it so interesting how an impairment of the brain could lead to becoming obsessed with one particular part of the body. Another case describes a man with damage to his left hemisphere, which caused him to become obsessed with the size and shape of his nose. With the complexities of the brain, I wonder if neuroscientists will ever be able to pinpoint certain spots that connect to self-image of specific parts of the body. Also, how does the brain affect different levels of self-esteem? What makes one person’s self-image so much more positive than another’s?

link to video:
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/what-is-body-dysmorphic-disorder/69fuu62

Frontal Lobe Lesion and Humor

Article: People With Brain Injury to Frontal Lobe Don’t Get Certain Types of Humor
Published by the Centre for Neuro Skills


Damage to the right frontal lobe affects how people respond to certain types of jokes. The study discussed in this article tested adults between the ages of 18 and 70, half with brain lesions and half without. They found that people with right anterior frontal lobe damage were most affected when it comes to appreciating humor, including written and verbal jokes and funny cartoons. Compared to the control group as well as people with lesions in other brain areas, they did not smile or laugh as much, and they chose the wrong punch lines for written jokes. The study also found that brain lesion patients of this type had a preference for slapstick humor, which is often inappropriate.
We have discussed in class and I have read about the frontal lobe’s role in emotions and personality. It makes sense that patients with brain lesions in the frontal lobe would respond to jokes (or not respond) in ways that contrast with the control groups or other lesion patients. I have known that emotions, personality, and humor are all interrelated, but I never thought about the causal relationships. At times I think humor is able to affect my emotions, but this article asserts that our brain, and the center for emotion, affects my ability to be affected by humor.

rTMS and Depression

Article: "Resetting the Brain"
By: Christine Gorman
Published by TIME, partnership with CNN

After talking about transcranial magnetic stimulation in class, I was very interested to learn more about how it can treat disorders that affect social interaction, such as depression. As we discussed in class, the brain is both a chemical and electrical organ. Depression medication like Zoloft and Prozac target the chemical, which is where rTMS comes in. The article states that doctors are unsure of how rTMS actually works, but there is some speculation. It is certain that it is not the magnetic pulses, but rather the magnetic currents the pulses create that have an effect on the nerve cells in the brain. Martha, the subject of this article, had rTMS treatment five times a week for six weeks, and felt different after three.
The author compares rTMS to rebooting a computer. Because people with depression have an imbalance in their brains (the expression, “the wires are crossed”), the electric current sends shocks to the cortex, basically restarting the brain nad giving it a boost.
I think this is a fascinating technique, although it seems kind of scary. I think it is worth trying under severe circumstances, but I wonder what problems rTMS could cause if something went wrong.

Get Out of My Personal Space

Article: Personal space regulation by the human amygdala
Authors: Daniel P Kennedy, Jan Gläscher, J Michael Tyszka & Ralph Adolph
Published by Nature Neuroscience 12, 1226 - 1227 (2009)
Published online: 30 August 2009 | doi:10.1038/nn.2381

How is the brain involved in the regulation of personal space? Previous research has shown that the amygdala is involved in social approach and avoidance, but not much is known about personal space. After this experiment, it was found that the amygdala is involved in recognition of personal space, and is activated when an individual is next to others. One lesion patient was compared with people without amygdalar damage, and they analyzed each participant’s comfort level at different distances to a confederate.
The participant with amygdala lesion lacked discomfort even at very close distances (almost touching) to the experimenter. In instances where healthy people felt uncomfortable, the lesion patient felt comfortable. The article states that even the confederate, who knew what was going on, felt uncomfortable in the situation. However, the article does point out that the lesion patient was aware that others have discomfort when she did not.
Although personal space is subjective to each individual, there are cultural definitions of personal space. For instance, I know that Italians’ cultural standard of personal space is closer than Americans’. Does this have implications on how the amygdala develops or how it responds in people of different cultures?

The Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex's role in Moral Judgement

Article: Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex
Authors:Elisa Ciaramelli, Michela Muccioli, Elisabetta Làdavas, and Giuseppe di Pellegrino
Published in: Soc Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2007 June; 2(2): 84–92.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been known to account for aggressiveness, lack of concern for social and moral rules, and irresponsibility. The researchers tested seven brain lesion patients and twelve healthy (control group) patients to see how participants made decisions about the appropriateness of personal and impersonal moral dilemmas. From what I understand, the difference between the two dilemmas has to do with actually harming another person directly. As the article describes, it is the difference between pushing someone off a ledge in order to save five other lives and flipping a switch that causes one person’s death but saves five others. The personal dilemma is coming in contact with another person, while the impersonal dilemma only requires the flipping of a switch. Take note that personal dilemmas cause more emotional strain on the actor.
The researchers presented patients with 3 screens. The first screen described a scenario, the second screen asked if the action was appropriate or inappropriate, and the third screen asked the participant to recall something about the scenario to ensure that he or she remembered enough about the situation in order to make a decision.
The results found that patients with ventromedial prefrontal lesions approved more personal moral violations compared to the control group, and did so more quickly. Interestingly, the control group and patients with brain lesions did not show much variation on deciding the appropriateness of impersonal moral dilemmas. The article claims that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex “allows individuals to endure sacrifices now in order to obtain benefits later.” In that case, brain lesion patients are more inclined to think ahead. From one of my other posts, I have learned that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex plays a large role in empathy. If morality and empathy are related, brain lesion patients would be at a deficit on both fronts. Healthy subjects would have an easier time assessing how their moral actions would make them feel.

The Role of TMS in Studying Facial Signals

Article:
“Dissociable roles of the human somatosensory and superior temporal cortices for processing social face signals”

Authors: Gilles Pourtois, David Sander, Michael Andres, Didier Grandjean, Lionel Reveret, Etienne Olivier and Patrik Vuilleumier

Published by: EuropeanJournalofNeuroscience,Vol.20,pp.3507–3515,2004

This article examines the role of the right somatosensory cortex and the right superior lateral temporal cortex in recognizing emotional expression, either fear or happiness, and shift in eye gaze. The researchers used single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation over these two areas of the brain while participants completed the given task. The participants, who were all healthy, had to look at two successive pictures depicting people with different emotions and directions of eye gaze. They were then asked to press a button indicating whether the two pictures showed the same emotion and the same eye gaze. The pictures only showed people displaying happy or fearful emotions and eye gazes were only shifted either direction by 30 degrees.
The results concluded that TMS over the somatosensory areas interfered with recognizing fear and that TMS over the superior temporal cortex interfered with the perception of gaze shifts, meaning that the two different areas in the brain have unique functions. The experiments also found that TMS slowed down recognition of fearful expressions versus recognition of happy expressions. I thought this was a very interesting finding. The article suggests that happiness is easier to detect because it can be identified by one universal facial signal, a smile.
After reading the article, I wonder why the researchers chose to test these two emotions, as opposed to “opposite” emotions like happiness and sadness. I also wonder how TMS would affect the recognition of other emotions, especially anger, since I think that is very easy to detect. I also found it interesting that the two successive pictures were always different genders. What is it about the differing genders that the researchers were looking for? This makes me question whether being able to identify with the person on the picture may have something to do with recognition of social cues. Perhaps if the participant knew the person in the picture the results would change. The most interesting concept for me was that recognizing fear in other people uses a different part of the brain (somatosensory areas) than recognizing and responding to fear in one’s self, which we have learned involves using the amygdala.

Brain Lesion and Empathy

Article:

“Characterization of Empathy Deficits following Prefrontal Brain Damage: The Role of the Right Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex” was written by S.G. Shamay-Tsoory, R. Tomer, B.D. Berger, and J. Aharon-Peretz and published by The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.  

This article examines how brain lesion in the prefrontal cortex affects the ability to empathize with others.  Research thus far has found that various parts of the brain work together in empathy, but that the right ventromedial (VM) prefrontal cortex plays the biggest role.  The researchers tested brain lesion patients and emotional processing through two tasks: participants were asked to identify seven different emotions depicted by people in thirty-five pictures and to listen to sentences and identify the person’s emotion by analyzing their intonation of speech.

Although VM lesion patients may understand a social situation, they may not necessarily understand the emotional outcome.  This inability causes them to respond inappropriately, not empathetically.  Other effects included decreased self-awareness, social judgment, ability to make decisions, and loss of insight.

Identifying others’ emotions is crucial in social interaction.  It makes sense that being unable to judge what another person is feeling based on his or her facial expression or tone of voice would cause someone to act out the social norm.  Knowing what an individual is looking to get out of the interaction and his or her behavioral intent is crucial to identifying and empathizing with the other person, or in some cases, consciously deciding not to. I have always been interested in why some people are more socially adept than others, so I wonder if this research can go further to make conclusions about empathy in people without brain lesions.  Perhaps the size of the VM could affect social ability?

region highlighted: ventromedial prefrontal cortex

 

shows damage to right ventromedial prefrontal cortex