Psych presentation dahlia
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The anterior cingulate cortex is located in the front of the cingulate cortex, circling above the corpus callosum. It is connected to other brain regions and involved in several functions. The ACC detects errors and monitors for conflicts. It also plays a role in reward-based learning and emotional awareness. Studies have shown the ACC is less active in religious people when thinking about religion. The ACC is stimulated when viewing photos of former romantic partners. Dysfunction in the ACC may play a role in depression and OCD.
Psych presentation dahlia
- 1. ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX by, Dahlia Rawji and Patricia Cikankova
- 2. LOCATION IN THE BRAIN The anterior cingulate cortex is located towards the front of the cingulate cortex A region that circles above the corpus callosum This region is connected to the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex as well as both motor and visual systems. The anterior cingulate cortex is one of the four main subdivisions.
- 3. FUNCTIONS OF THE ACC
- 4. ERROR DETECTION AND CONFLICT MONITORING The error detection functioning comes from observations of error-related negativity which is generated in the ACC during error occurrences. Detection of conflict situations
- 5. REWARD-BASED LEARNING In the ACC the dorsal and rostral areas are both affected by the “rewards and losses” associated with errors. Detects and monitors errors.
- 6. ROLE IN CONSCIOUSNESS ACC activation has illustrated that we have better emotional awareness and it is associated with improved recognition of emotional cues or targets.
- 7. RELIGION Strong religious beliefs are beginning to be associated with low activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, according to researchers at York University
- 8. STUDIES
- 9. Bush, Vogt, Holmes, Dale, Greve, Jenike et al. (2002) The aim was to explore social and emotional functions in patients with medial frontal damage primarily in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Three patients with medial frontal lobe damage involving the ACC performed tasks on decision making, and emotional facial expression recognition. Patient performance on the decision making and social situations tasks did not differ from controls. Selective emotional facial expression recognition impairment for fear was evident in one patient with right ACC damage.
- 10. Inzlicht & Tullet (2010) - UofT Study Researchers showed that when people think about religion and God and how brains would respond and if they would respond differently Participants either wrote about religion or did a scrambled word task that included religion and God-related words. Then the researchers recorded their brain activity as they completed a computerized task - one that was chosen because it has a high rate of errors. The results showed that when people typically began to think about religion and God, either consciously or unconsciously, brain activity decreases in areas consistent with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).
- 11. Inzlicht & Tullet (2010) - UofT Study (cont.) Atheists reacted differently; when they were unconsciously primed with God-related ideas, their ACC increased its activity. The researchers suggest that for religious people, thinking about God may justify the world and random events and thus it reduces any feelings of anxiety. For atheists thoughts of God “may contradict the meaning systems they embrace and thus cause them more distress.”
- 12. Journal of Neurophysiology (2010) Researchers used fMRI to record brain activity in 15 college-age heterosexual men and women who had recently been rejected by their partners but were still intensely "in love." All participants said they spend more than 85% of their waking hours thinking of the person who rejected them. Participants each viewed a photograph their former partners. Then they completed a simple math exercise to distract them from their romantic thoughts. Then, they viewed a photograph of a familiar "neutral" person. The researchers found that looking at photographs of the participants' former partners stimulated several key areas of the participants' brains more than looking at photos of neutral persons did. Along with nucleus accumbens the anterior cingulate cortex was stimulated.
- 13. DYSFUNCTIONAL ACC? Stimulation of the ACC with “low dosages of electrical current” have shown improve depression. There is evidence that the ACC could have a role in the OCD because of the low level of “glutamate activity” in this region and it has been observed in OCD sufferers.