There are some memories one would rather forget. This is especially true for people who suffer from phobias or from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some memories can decrease and even disappear through a process called extinction, but the mechanisms that are involved are not known. Tsai and colleagues now show that a molecular pathway in the hippocampus that involves cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) regulates the extinction of contextual fear in mice.

When mice are exposed to an aversive stimulus in a neutral context, they develop fear for that context — this is called conditioned fear. In a subsequent ‘extinction procedure’ that consists of daily 3-minute long re-exposures to the context alone, the animals gradually become less afraid of the environment, as evidenced by reduced freezing.

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Nature Neuroscience is running a  on emotions and disorders of emotion.

It includes papers on brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its role in depression and anxiety, the social learning of fear, and how the circuitry of mood and anxiety disorders can be altered.

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A new issue of Cognition & Emotion is out, including articles on affective processing, affection as a form of cognition, and the interdependence of emotion and cognition.

Cognition & Emotion, Volume 21 Issue 6 2007

How distinctive is affective processing? On the implications of using cognitive paradigms to study affect and emotion
Authors: Andreas B. Eder; Bernhard Hommel; Jan De Houwer

Differentiation in cognitive and emotional meanings: An evolutionary analysis
Authors: Philip J. Barnard; David J. Duke; Richard W. Byrne; Iain Davidson

Affect is a form of cognition: A neurobiological analysis
Authors: Seth Duncan; Lisa Feldman Barrett

On the interdependence of cognition and emotion
Authors: Justin Storbeck; Gerald L. Clore

Can cognitive methods be used to study the unique aspect of emotion: An appraisal theorist’s answer
Author: Agnes Moors

Affect and action: Towards an event-coding account
Authors: Tristan Lavender; Bernhard Hommel

Common valence coding in action and evaluation: Affective blindness towards response-compatible stimuli
Authors: Andreas B. Eder; Karl Christoph Klauer

Mere exposure in reverse: Mood and motion modulate memory bias
Authors: Mark Rotteveel; R. Hans Phaf

Affective distinctiveness: Illusory or real?
Authors: John T. Cacioppo; Gary G. Berntson

Cognition & Emotion

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Medscape.com has a very nice article on anhedonia, which is described as “an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, and social or sexual interaction”. Here, we bring an excerpt from the article.

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What happens if you are presented with subliminal stimuli that are normally associated with fear or sexual arousal? In a study published in Biological Psychiatry two Spanish researchers now document that both negative positive biologically relevant stimuli can be nonconsciously processed. Furthermore, it is thought that this mechanism is mediated by amygdala activation and that such stimuli can affect behavioral responding.

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A new issue of Emotion is out, containing articles on topics including:

• emotion inference
• emotional competence in childhood
• chimp facial expressions

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What is the relation between emotion and consciousness? In their recent paper in TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, Tsuchiya and Adolphs review recent studies that address this question. 

Focusing on domains where emotion and consciousness overlap and interact, Tsuchiya and Adolphs suggest that each (emotion and consciousness) is necessary for aspects of the other.  They follow the common view that emotion and consciousness result from neuronal activity in the brain and they argue that both emotion and consciousness depend on neural representations of one’s own body.  Moreover, Tsuchiya and Adolphs argue that these representations arise from structures in the brainstem and medial telencephalon that receive interoceptive information.  The authors believe that future work requires not only more data but also further theoretical development of the relevant concepts that are currently under investigation.

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Some people find angry looks from others so rewarding they go out of their way to encourage them, Michigan researchers said.

“It’s kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for,” said Oliver Schultheiss, University of Michigan associate professor of psychology.

His study may explain why some people like to tease each other, he said.

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A new issue of Emotion is out, including articles on:

• emotion inference
• appraisals
• emotional competence in children
• multimodal expression of emotion

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Is it possible to improve our ability to read other’s minds? In the case of mind-reading disabilities such as that found in autism spectrum disorder, it has been suggested that it is possible to train patients to become better at reading other’s minds.

What, then about pharmacological interventions? Is there an “empathy drug” that makes us more empathic? In a priority communication in Biological Psychiatry, Domes et al. report that the administration of oxitocin (relative to placebo effect) improves the ability to infer the mental state of others from social cues of the eye region. Hubmed abstract; Full Text.

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A new issue of Cognition & Emotion is out.

Articles include the following topics:

• emotional awareness
• response inhibition
• conditioning

Click through for the TOC and links.

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Abstract from the Journal of Personality:

Three studies examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and emotional creativity (EC) and whether each construct was predictive of creative behavior. It was hypothesized that the relationship between EI and EC corresponds to the relationship between cognitive intelligence and creative ability. Therefore, EI and EC were expected to be two distinct sets of abilities. Intercorrelations and confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesis. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that EC, but not EI, would correlate with behavioral creativity. Self-report measures of EC significantly correlated with laboratory and self-reported creativity measures in both studies, while ability measures of EC only correlated with self-reported artistic activity. EI was uncorrelated with creative behavior.

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When the neuro-talk falls on emotions, most start thinking about the amygdala. Little do we associate with that hind-brain structure we call the cerebellum. Although it is known that this structure is involved in more than movements, little is really known about it’s cognitive functions, let alone in emotions.

In an article by Turner et al. in Neuropsychologia, the function of the cerebellum in emotions is explored by comparing six patients with cerebellar injury and healthy subjects. By applying both behavioural and PET methods, the results demonstrate that cerebellum plays a role in both positive and negative emotions.

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The latest issue of Motivation and Emotion is a special issue on antonomy, volitional motivation and wellness.

The TOC includes:

• goal motives and well-being
• autonomy and nondefensiveness
• Motivational Predictors of Change in Oral Health.

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A new issue of Cognition & Emotion is out. It contains articles on emotionally evocative music, emotional intelligence, and gender-by-race emotional differences.

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Depersonalization Disorder (DPD) is a dissociative disorder in which sufferers are affected by persistent feelings of depersonalization. The symptoms include a sense of automation, feeling a disconnection from one’s body, and difficulty relating oneself to reality. In a recent study Medford et al. reports that patients with DPD do not process emotionally salient material in the same way as healthy controls, in accordance with their subjective descriptions of reduced or absent emotional responses

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A new issue of Cognition & Emotion is out. It is a special issue on Magda B. Arnold‘s contributions to emotion research and theory. Here, we bring the table of content of this issue.

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Alexithymia is a manifestation of a deficit in emotional cognition. People with this problem are mostly unaware of their feelings, or don’t know what they signify, and hence they rarely talk about their emotions or their emotional preferences; they operate in a very functional manner and rarely use imagination to focus their drives and motivations. Alexithymia refers to this distinctive cluster of characteristics.

In a recent study published in NeuroImage, a team of researchers demonstrate that “the skills involved in comprehending the self and others are inter-related and play an important role in emotion regulation”.

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The second most read article in TICS (see previous headline) is a review (PDF) of studies from imaging genetics, the study of how genes make up our minds, as we have described here at SCR. Ahmad Hariri and Andrew Holmes reviews the evidence and discusses the implications of the genetic regulation of serotonin function on both brain function and behaviour in emotions.

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In three new independent studies, researchers have deepened our understanding of the remarkable ability of some specialized areas of the brain to activate both in response to one’s own actions and in response to sensory cues (such as sight) of the same actions perpetrated by another individual.

This ability is thought to be based in the activity of so-called mirror neurons, which have been hypothesized to contribute to skills such as empathy, socialized behavior, and language acquisition. The new findings contribute to our understanding of how conceptually related instances of language and action, and sound and action, are linked in the brain, and how the brain distinguishes actions perpetrated by “self” and by “other.”

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