Download Abstract Book Brain Circuits for Positive Emotions

1
Abstract Book
Brain Circuits for Positive Emotions
October 19-23, 2014
Congressi Stefano Franscini, Monte Verità
Ascona, Switzerland
3 Keynote lectures, 31 lectures by renowned experts,
18 short lectures chosen among the abstracts, poster session
Organizers: Claudio Bassetti, Neurology, Bern; Carlo Calanchini, Psychiatry, Lugano;
Marco Celio, Neuroanatomy, Fribourg.
Scientific committee: Walter Perrig, Psychology, Berne; Werner Strik, Psychiatry, Berne;
Giovanni Ventimiglia, Istituto di Studi Filosofici, Lugano.
2
We are grateful to following sponsors for supporting financially the congress:
“Brain Circuits for Positive Emotions”
3
SESSIONS
Sunday morning, October 19
Arrival of the participants
12:00- Welcome Address (Restaurant)
12:15
12:30- Light lunch
13:45
Sunday afternoon, October 19
Philosophy, Art and Ethology: Chair G. Ventimiglia
(Auditorium)
14:00- Kevin Mulligan: The harmfulness of happiness
14:30
14:30- Tim Schröder: The positive emotional aspects of
15:00 reward
15:00- Massimo Reichlin: Positive emotions and the
15:30 generation of conscience
15:30- Coffee break
16:00
16:00- Francesco Tamiati: Trumpet Concert: Evoking
16:30 Emotions (Balint Room)
16:45- Christian Mikutta: Music and the emotional brain
17:15
17:15- Diana Omigie: Emotion processing network
17:30 activated by musical stimuli
17:30- Isabel Behncke-Izquierdo: Ancient joy: laughter
17:50 and play in the wild bonobos of Wamba, RD Congo
18:00- Welcome drink
18:30
18:30- Keynote lecture (Auditorium)
19:30 Jaak Panksepp: Psychiatric implications of
understanding primal emotional feelings in other
animals
19:3021:00
Dinner
Monday morning, October 20
Neuroanatomy: Chair M. Celio (Auditorium)
08:15- L. Sognonini, C. Cometta: History and video of the
08:30 Monte Verità
08:30- Carmen Cavada: Architecture of the primate
09:00 orbitofrontal cortex relevant for emotional
processing
09:0009:30
09:3010:00
10:0010:30
10:3011:00
11:0011:15
11:1511:30
11:3011:45
12:3013:45
Gonzalo Alvarez- Bolado: Embryonic
Development of Emotional Circuits
Gert Holstege: How the emotional motor system
controls the pelvic organs
Coffee break
Marco Celio: The lateral hypothalamus and the
expression of emotions
Hari Subramanian: The periaqueductal gray and
control of emotional expression
Elise Wattendorf: Hypothalamic involvement in
laughter and related anticipatory processes
Henry Evrard: Organization of the primate insular
cortex
Lunch
Monday afternoon, October 20
Neurophysiology: Chair W. Schultz (Auditorium)
14:00- Wolfram Schultz: Reward, learning and choices
14:30
14:30- Ralph Adolphs: Single-unit recordings of emotion
15:00 in the human brain
15:00- Angela Roberts: Prefrontal contribution to the
15:30 regulation of positive and negative emotional
states
15:3016:00
16:0016:20
16:2016:40
16:4017:00
17:0017:15
17:1517:30
18 :0019 :15
19:3021:00
Coffee break
Steve Kennerley: Deciding how to decide: the role
of the prefrontal cortex
Igor Kagan: Integration of reward, effort and risk
in decision-making
Sarah Garfinkel: Embodied emotions:
cardiovascular coupling with emotion types
Urs Albrecht: Circadian clock in mood related
behaviors
Kallia Apazoglou: Reversal Olfactory Learning
Poster session with drinks
Dinner
Tuesday morning, October 21
Neurology: Chair C. Bassetti (Auditorium)
08:30- Clif Saper: Circuitry producing cataplexy in
09:00 response to positive emotions
09:00- Christian Lüscher: Recovering from too strong
09:30 reward: towards a synaptic model of addiction
09:30- Patrik Vuilleumier: Brain systems underlying the
10:00 perception, representation, and control of different
types of emotions
10:0010:30
10:3011:00
11:0011:20
11:2011:35
11:3511:50
12:3013:45
Coffee break
Claudio Bassetti: The neurology of laughter
René Müri: The neurology of facial and emotional
expression
Ramin Khatami: The role of dopamine and
hypocretin in cataplexy.
Jean-Marie Annoni: Decision making in multiple
sclerosis
Lunch and group picture
Tuesday afternoon, October 21
Excursion to the three Castles in Bellinzona, typical
dinner and Teatro « Dimitri » in Verscio
Wednesday morning, October 22
Social Neurosciences: Chair T. Singer (Auditorium)
08:30- Tania Singer: From Empathy to Compassion and
09:00 their Plasticity
09:00- Dean Mobbs: The neural basis of social motivators
09:30
09:30- Adam Guastella: Oxytocin and the social brain
10:00
10:00- Coffee break
10:30
4
10.30
11:00
11:00
11:20
11:2011:35
11:3511:50
12:3013:45
Ralph Adolphs: Attending to the social world
Glenn Fox: Neural correlates of gratitude
Christin Burgdorf : Attachment style predicts
opioidergic modulation of warmth liking
Philip Gerrans: Depersonalization and the insular
cortex.
Lunch
Wednesday afternoon, October 22
Psychiatry: Chair W. Strik and C. Calanchini (Auditorium)
14:00- Ann M. Kring: Schizophrenia and the emotional
14:30 brain
14:30- Fabio Macciardi: Genomic and epigenomic
15:00 mechanism shape the emotional brain
15:00- Antonio Andreoli: Circuits of wellbeing and
15:30 emotionally unstable personalities
15:30- Coffee break
16:00
16:00- Emanuela Mundo: Brain plasticity and positive
16:30 emotions: the role of the therapeutic experiences
16:3017:00
17:0017:20
17:2017:35
18:1519:15
20:0021:00
19:3021:00
across different diagnosis.
George Koob: Addiction as a window on the
neurocircuitry of emotion
Birgit Derntl: Emotional competencies in
schizophrenia: brain and behavior
Luca Passamonti: Openess and the dopaminergic
neural network
Keynote lecture (Auditorium)
Robert Provine: Laughter
Carlo Calanchini: Capire le emozioni: un percorso
tortuoso. Talk in italian for the general public
Dinner
Thursday morning, October 23
Psychology: Chair W. Perrig (Auditorium)
08:30- David Sander: What is the role of the Amygdala in
09:00 positive emotions?
09:00- Willibald Ruch: Mapping the field of humor:
09:30 Beyond emotion, cognition and virtue
09:30- Paul Pauli: The pleasure of relief
10:00
10:00- Coffee break
10:30
10:30- Rainer Schwarting: Rat 50-kHz vocalizations in
11:00 affective and social neuroscience
11:00- Barbara Studer: Emotional stability promotes
11:15 intelligence
11:15- Eva Pool: Attention orientation to positive
11:30 rewarding stimuli
11:30- Christian Waugh: Savoring positive emotions
11:45
11:45- Keynote Lecture (Auditorium)
12:30 Mario De Caro: Philosophy and the science of
emotions
12:4513:45
Lunch and Award Ceremony for the CSF young
scientist award
Thursday afternoon, October 23
Departure of the participants
Centro Stefano Franscini (CSF)
Award
A CSF award will be attributed to the best
presentation given during our CSF conference. The
Award corresponds to the sum of CHF 500, and is
delivered together with a certificate and a small CSF /
Monte Verità memento.
The scientific/organizing committee will designate the
winner of this prize according to the following two
criteria:
- best oral presentation (content and form)
- doctoral degree received within the last 3 years (age
< 33 years).
The award will be presented by to the winner by a
representative of the CSF, Thursday October 23, at
lunch time.
5
SEQUENTIAL LIST OF
SPEAKERS
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19
Philosophy, Art and Ethology: Chair G.
Ventimiglia
Kevin Mulligan
Philosophy, University of Geneva, Geneva
The harmfulness of happiness
Sunday, October 19, 14:00-14:30
Can happiness or its pursuit harm you? Recent discussion
of happiness often seems to ignore this possibility.
Perhaps the best-known example of this possibility
outside philosophy is one from economics: inability to
defer gratification or present happiness will make you
worse off. But many other cases have been described by
philosophers over the centuries which are perhaps not as
well-known. Some of these rely on a parallel between
belief and emotions. Incorrect beliefs can certainly harm
you. If someone knows that you believe what is not the
case, he may be able to bankrupt you. Is there anything
like “incorrect” happiness ? And if so, can it be harmful?
We often assess emotions in terms of correctness
(appropriateness, justification) and incorrectness. Fear of
a dog which is not dangerous is incorrect. So is
indignation about a situation which is, in fact, not unjust.
And shame about a deed which, in fact, was not
shameful. Suppose now that you are happy about an
impending promotion but in fact your promotion is not
going to take place or is going to take place but is
undeserved. Might it then be the case that your
happiness is bad for you ?
A second type of case relies not on an analogy between
belief and emotions but on a relation between them:
some beliefs makes us happy, others unhappy; if you
systematically prefer beliefs which flatter you or “make
you feel good” to unpleasant beliefs, you are very likely
to end up with lots of incorrect beliefs, and so can be
easily bankrupted, fooled, tricked, and manipulated. A
third type of case also brings in a social dimension of
happiness. Suppose you are happy when and because
other people are happy. Perhaps you are just prone to
affective contagion. Perhaps you are happy in ways
suggested by people you take as models. Perhaps your
happiness tracks the happiness of those who are near
and dear to you, in whom you are “invested” (Frankfurt),
or indeed of higher-order social groups (nations,
countries, races). In each case, the happiness of others
may harm you. For example, if the happiness of others
makes you happy, then their unhappiness may well make
you unhappy.
Can the pursuit of happiness make you unhappy ? Some
types of happiness are relatively easy to bring about –
pleasure in skiing, the enjoyment of good claret. Others
are not so easy to manipulate, for example, joy, serenity
or bliss. Or at least so it is sometimes claimed. Are these
two assertions plausible ? If so, is it possible that overconcentration on the more easily manipulable pleasures
makes us blasé or even less liable to the less easily
manipulable happinesses ? I suggest different ways in
which the four possibilities mentioned might be
evaluated and argue that it is crucial to distinguish
between different types of pleasure – pleasure in activity,
localized and unlocalised pleasure, the pleasure of
realizing a goal, pleasure from, pleasure in – and different
types of happiness – fun, joy, enjoyment, bliss serenity
and satisfaction.
Kevin Mulligan is a member of the Royal Swedish
Academy of Letters, full professor of analytic philosophy
and Chairman of the Department of philosophy at the
University of Geneva, Switzerland. His work concerns
ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic and
the history of Austrian philosophy from Bolzano to Musil
and Wittgenstein. He is the author of “Wittgenstein et la
philosophie austro-allemande » (2012, Paris, Vrin) and his
most recent articles are “Foolishness, Stupidity and
Cognitive Values”, «Formal Concepts», «Is Preference
primitive?»
Tim Schröder
Philosophy, University of Ohio, Columbus
The positive emotional aspects of reward
Sunday, October 19, 14:30-15:00
The reward system is known to have a strong effect on
motivation and action, and a strong effect on feelings of
pleasure. What is the connection between these two
facts? There is an ancient hypothesis that all actions are
done, ultimately, for the sake of pleasure or the
avoidance of displeasure (this is 'psychological
hedonism'). Is this hypothesis vindicated by research on
the reward system? In this talk, I will argue that it is not.
In fact, the evidence of neuroscience, once appropriately
interpreted, provides a powerful new argument that
psychological hedonism is false.
Tim Schroeder is a Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State
University, and also currently a Visiting Scholar at
Stanford University (the institution where he received a
PhD in philosophy in 1998). His research has involved
looking at the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of
reward, pleasure, and action, and interpreting the results
in terms meaningful to traditional philosophical research,
such as 'desire' and 'weakness of will'. He has written
papers on consciousness, concepts, Tourette syndrom,
addiction, and other topics, and written two books. Three
Faces of Desire was published by Oxford in 2004; In
6
Praise of Desire (co-authored with Nomy Arpaly) was
published by Oxford in 2014
as Bioethics and Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and
has been a speaker at major national and international
conferences concerning ethics.
Massimo Reichlin
University San Raffaele , Milano
Positive emotions and the generation of conscience
Sunday, October 19, 14:30-15:00
Much of the empirical research on the relationships
between emotions and morality centres on negative
emotions. It is often said, for example, that emotions such
as contempt, anger and disgust are basic in shaping our
fundamental moral approaches – the community-based,
the autonomy-based, and the divinity-based moral
outlooks. Recent neuro-scientific work on moral
judgments has particularly stressed the relationship
between the expressions of oral and smelling disgust and
the formation of moral judgments, advancing the
hypothesis that the moral faculty be exapted from such
evolution-driven forms of physical disgust.
While not denying the role that negative emotions play
in the generation and reinforcement of moral responses, I
will suggest that a relevant role may be played by
positive emotions as well. From an ontogenetic point of
view, in particular, the primordia of moral conscience
might be seen in the loving and caring relationship
between the mother (and other relevant adults) and the
new-born. Empathy, which certainly plays a role in the
development of the moral faculty, is a mechanism that
allows to feel others’ emotions: it is an important source
of positive emotions towards others, those having to do
with compassion, care and a disposition to understand
their predicament.
Both in young and in adult humans, the capacity to
develop a sympathetic and morally well-disposed
character seems to depend in a large part on the passive
experience of the care and love that individuals receive
(and sometimes do not receive), and on the emotionallyladen mutual recognition that takes place in primary,
deeply felt human relationships. Morality is a virtuous
circle, for it is only by being the object of caring
relationships that a capacity to understand others and a
disposition to care for them is developed. It can be
suggested, thus, that a much more attentive study of
positive emotions by empirical research may shed
important light on the complex phenomenon of moral
experience
Massimo Reichlin is associated professor of bioethics,
human medical sciences and moral phylosophy at the
University San Raffaele, Milano, Italy. He has focused on
contemporary ethics and in recent years he also worked
on neuroethics and approches to ethics that move from
research of developmental psychology. Since 2002 he is a
member of the Ethics Committee of the Scientific
Institute San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. He has published
articles in leading journals in international journals such
Coffee Break 15.30-16.00
Francesco Tamiati
First trumpet, Teatro La
Scala, Milano
Trumpet
Concert:
Evoking
Emotions
(Balint Room)
Sunday,
October
19,
16:00-16:30
Francesco Tamiati, born in 1965 in Vercelli, Italy, has
completed his studies at the Conservatory "A. Vivaldi "in
Alessandria with Luigi Sechi, graduating in 1984 with
honors. He started at a young age his concert activity, he
won even before completing his studies (between 1980
and 1981) numerous competitions including first prize in
Stresa, Torino and Alessandria, in addition to being
ranked first in the "Rotary International Youth Orchestra ".
Since January 2002, he held the role of "Trumpet" at the
orchestra of the "Teatro alla Scala" and the 'Philharmonic
Orchestra of "Teatro alla Scala". He then completed his
training following courses with solo trumpet of the four
major orchestras: Armando Ghitalla (Boston Symphony
Orchestra), John Wallace (Philharmonia Orchestra of
London), Hannes Läubin (Bayerischer Rundfunk
Symphonie Orchester), Philip Smith (New York
Philharmonic). As the first trumpet has played with major
orchestras Italian RAI of Milano and Torino, Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Teatro San Carlo in Napoli, La
Fenice in Venezia, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova. He
was also first trumpet holder of the Teatro dell'Opera di
Genova and the Orchestra of Italian Switzerland (Lugano).
At the same time plays an intense soloist accompanied
by various orchestras with which he has made recordings
for radio and television. He has given concerts as well as
in Italy and in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, India and
Peru. As a soloist, he has participated to the preparation
of two operas for the Teatro alla Scala in Milano, among
which the world premiere of "Lohengrin" by Salvatore
Sciarrino. He recently took part in the concert production
and television production of "Mass in B Minor" by Bach,
conducted by Maestro Riccardo Muti, and the production
of concerts conducted by Maestro Daniel Barenboim
"Histoire du soldat by Igor Stravinsky." Francesco Tamiati
is very involved in chamber music and in duo with pianist
Fulvio Bottega or with the organist Joseph Radini, both
with various chamber groups including, "Nextime
Ensemble", "Ensemble E. Varèse," Cammer Opera
Ensemble ""Trumpets and Timpani Ensemble Theatre alla
7
Scala" virtuosos of La Scala". He is also a founding
member of the "Italian Brass Quintet". Wide is his
experience in the field of education. F. Tamiati was
professor of trumpet at the respective Conservatives: "G.
Cantelli" of Novara and "GF Ghedini "of Cuneo and has
given master classes as well as in Italy (Conservatorio" G.
Nicolini "in Piacenza, Conservatorio" G. Verdi
"Conservatory" G. Tartini in Trieste in Peru and India).
Since 2003 he has become professor of trumpet at the
'Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milano. He is also a
lecturer at the Conservatory of Italian Switzerland in
Lugano. Francesco Tamiati plays a Besson Cornet Piston
Flugelhorn Prestige model and a model Curtois 156r - 4
valves.
Christian Mikutta, MD, is currently a Post Doc at the Helen
Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California,
Berkeley, USA. He has been a resident in psychiatry at the
University of Psychiatry in Bern, Switzerland. He is
interested at the brain behavior face to music and
published several articles about this subject. The last one
has for title „Professional musicians listen differently to
music“.
science research demonstrates that, in the general public,
music is widely exploited as a tool with which to manage
mood and arousal. However, while a growing body of
neuroscience research has been able to reveal neural
correlates of distinct musical emotions ranging from the
basic (e.g. happy and sad) to the aesthetic (e.g. wonder
and nostalgia), still elusive are insights into the dynamics
of the communication between implicated brain areas
and the specific roles each of these play. The current
series of studies takes advantage of the excellent spatial
and
temporal
resolution
of
intracranial
electroencephalography recordings, which can be
collected from epileptic patients implanted with depth
electrodes for presurgical evaluation. In the first two
studies, participants were presented with positively and
negatively valenced musical chords, which they either
monitored for timbral oddballs (Study 1) or rated for
pleasantness (Study 2). In a third ongoing study, they are
presented with short melodies, whose individual notes
have been characterized in terms of Information Content
(IC) - a measure of stimulus unexpectedness, the
listeners’ experience of which is held to be a rich source
of positive musical emotions. Analysis of data from
Studies 1 and 2 showed that the amygdala tends to drive
both the orbitofrontal cortex and the auditory cortex
during the processing of valenced stimuli, and
demonstrated a specific role of the orbitofrontal cortex in
the processing of positively valenced stimuli. In addition,
the use of subjective ratings (Study 2) to sort trials
according to stimuli considered ‘pleasant’ and
‘unpleasant’ allowed the demonstration of a critical role
of the orbitofrontal cortex in evaluative judgments and
subjective experience: this compared to the amygdala,
which was in contrast shown to be more concerned with
the physical properties of the stimuli. Finally, preliminary
results of the third study suggest modulations of activity
in key members of the emotion network, specifically the
amygdala, by the IC of musical events, drawing an
important link between music as an ‘ambiguous stimulus
situation’ and the role of the amygdala in ‘modulating
moment-to-moment vigilance’ in such situations
(Whalen, 1998). Taken together the three studies provide
important insights into the behaviour of individual
members of the emotion processing network and
demonstrate the promise of using both musical stimuli
and intracranial recordings in the study of this system.
Diana Omigie
Isabel Behncke-Izquierdo
Christian Mikutta
Psychiatry, University of Berne, Berne
Music and the emotional brain
Sunday, October 19, 16:45-17:15
Music’s power to evoke emotions is partly the fundament
of it’s success throughout human societies. First the basal
neural mechanisms of music decoding will reviewed. In
particular the extraction of relevant acoustic features of
music will be explored. To address this issue we used
intracranial recordings (electroencephalography, ECoG)
from auditory cortex in the human superior temporal
gyrus (STG) to determine what acoustic information in
music can be reconstructed from population neural
activity. Further we highlight the interactions of the
decoding process in the STG, hippocampal regions and
heart rate using simultaneous recorded ECoG and
hippocampal depth electrode data during music
listening. Finally we discuss the correlation of music
syntactic processing and music induced emotions.
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am
Main
Emotion processing network activated by musical
stimuli
Sunday, October 19, 17:15-17:30
Short talk
Music constitutes an everyday stimulus that can convey a
range of complex and rich emotions. Indeed social
Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group ,
Oxford, UK
Ancient joy: laughter and play in the wild bonobos of
Wamba, RD Congo
Sunday, October 19, 17:30-17:45
Short talk
8
Play and laughter represent important evolutionary
continuities between animal play and human joy,
laughter, humour and creativity. I set to examine these
themes in bonobos since they are, together with
chimpanzees, our closest living relatives yet bonobos are
the ape we know less about. Moreover, bonobo
tolerance, juvenilised (neotenous) features and relaxed
hierarchies make them the ideal species for the study of
laughter and play.
Crucially, bonobos have solved a problem that neither
humans nor other apes have managed to solve: that of
living peacefully and with no lethal aggression. How do
they do it? We know that matriarchy and bisexual sex in
all partner combinations play an important role in
creating this unusual peace. But there is another, crucial
element to bonobo conundrum that has not been
uncovered: bonobos play, and they play throughout their
lives. Play, positive emotion, laughter and the regular
experience of joy seems to be crucial to the unique social
system bonobos exist in. In humans, the behaviours that
bond groups (such as laughter, dance, music, and ritual)
are all underpinned by play to different degrees. I ask
whether its time to examine the role of positive emotion
and play rather than just focusing on sexual behavior to
explain bonobos unusual social system. Moreover
laughter in apes has relevance to understanding the
importance of laughter in human evolution, as it may
constitute a good example of an evolutionary continuity.
Although laughter in humans has received considerable
attention by researchers, laughter in apes is an area ripe
for exploration. Matsusaka (2004) looked at the context
and laughter in wild chimpanzees; however to my
knowledge no studies of laughter in wild bonobos have
been done.
Unfortunately we know relatively litte of bonobo
behavior in the wild as their natural habitat is restricted
to the tropical jungles south of the river Congo in DRC
and the country’s endemic political instability has made
research difficult. Because play only happens if animals
are relaxed, studying play in wild animals (and
particularly in adults) can only happen under very
unusual conditions: requires first-rate habituation to
human observers. Wamba research site, managed by
Kyoto University, is unique in this regard, and constitutes
the longest running bonobo field site in the world. There
I spent three years following a community of 30 wild
habituated bonobos, focusing on laughter and social play
behavior, and adult play in particular. I will present my
findings on laughter in wild bonobos and highlight the
unique playful role of adult males in bonobo society.
Welcome Drink 18.00- 18.30
Keynote lecture
Jaak Panksepp
Washington State University, Washington
Psychiatric Implications of Understanding Primal
Emotional Feelings in Other Animals
Sunday, October 19, 18:30-19:30
Because of its bipolar positive and negative affective
structure, raw emotional feelings are an optimal way to
make scientific progress on the neural constitution of
consciousness. Such research has revealed the existence
of profound neuroanatomical and neurochemical
homologies in the systems that control emotionality
across mammalian and avian species. Wherever in their
brains one applies localized Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)
and obtains coherent instinctual emotional behavior
patterns, animals treat these within-brain state shifts as
'rewards' and 'punishments' in various simple learning
tasks. Humans consistently report desirable and
undesirable affective changes to such DBS. These effects
serve as gold standards for the detailed scientific study of
affective qualia in animal and human brains. Such work
helps clarify the neural nature of phenomenal-affective
consciousness, namely why various emotional arousals
feel good and bad in distinct ways.
Abundant convergent evidence indicates how such
primary-process subcortical neural networks generate
homologous emotional feelings in all mammals that have
been studied, and how they control learning and
memory. This knowledge illuminates our own deeper
nature, and allows neuroscientists to empirically
understand (across-species) how the brain generates
affective mental states. In other words, this type of
research
helps
reveal
the
causal/constitutive
infrastructure of human minds (i.e., the “hard problem” of
consciousness), through the detailed neuroscientific
analysis of the affective minds of other animals. It
provides a new foundation for understanding psychiatric
disorders as well and the development of new mind
medicines. Three new anti-depressants that have arisen
from this strategy will be summarized (see, Panksepp, et
al., 2014, Clinical Psychological Science, 2, pp 472-494).
In short, the progressive understanding of the
evolutionary infrastructure
of the cross-species
subcortical emotional circuitry can illuminate the affective
depths of our own minds, as well as those of our fellow
animals, and thereby promote new and more effective
psychiatric therapeutics.
Jaak Panksepp holds the Baily Endowed Chair of Animal
Well-Being Science in Washington State University's
College of Veterinary Medicine and is Emeritus
Distinguished Research Professor of Psychobiology at the
Department of Psychology of Bowling Green State
University. His research pioneered the neuroscientific
study of primary-process emotions in mammals, with the
goal of understanding the evolutionary infrastructure of
human emotional feelings. He coined the term “affective
neuroscience” as the name for the field that studies the
9
neural mechanisms of emotion, across species, not only
from neuro-ethological but also experiential perspectives
(i.e., monitoring the rewarding and punishing properties
of artificial arousal of basic mammalian emotional action
systems). His group generated the first neural (opioidaddictive) model of mother-infant social bonding, and
the neuroscience of playfulness and laughter in animals
(both with implications for development of new
antidepressants). His most recent book (with Lucy Biven)
is the Archaeology of Mind (Norton, 2012), which
explores some of the clinical implications of Affective
Neuroscience (Oxford, 1998). With Ken Davis, he
developed the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scale
to evaluate primal emotional proclivities in humans. They
are currently writing a book on the Psychobiology of
Personality.
Dinner 19.30 – 21.00
10
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20
Neuroanatomy: Chair M. Celio
Carmen Cavada
Anatomy, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid
Architecture of the primate orbitofrontal cortex
relevant for emotional processing
Monday, October 20, 08:30-09:00
The orbitofrontal and the medial prefrontal cortices share
many connections that set them apart from the lateral
prefrontal sector and from the rest of the cortex; they are
often considered together and named orbitomedial
frontal cortex (OmFC). The cortical and subcortical
connections of the primate OmFC cortex relevant for
emotional processing will be reviewed. Particular
attention will be paid to identifying knowledge domains
and data in need of further exploration and
understanding.
The OmFC is the cortical region most tightly linked with
the hypothalamus. It receives abundant hypothalamic
input, mostly from the posterior hypothalamus, and
projects rather specifically to posterior, lateral and dorsal
hypothalamic areas, perifornical nucleus, and mammillary
complex. The OmFC also projects to the periaqueductal
gray matter. Thus, the OmFC, unlike the lateral prefrontal
cortex, is in a key position to monitor and initiate the
autonomic responses associated with emotion. In
addition, the OmFC sustains dense and specific
connections with the amygdala and with a constellation
of cortical areas, including many limbic areas. The
connections with the amygdala are mostly reciprocal, in
particular those with the basal, accessory basal, lateral,
cortical anterior and periamygdaloid nuclei. The OmFC
projects to the central and paralaminar amygdaloid
nuclei and receives afferents from the medial nucleus.
The limbic cortical areas connected with the OmFC
include insular, temporopolar, cingulate, retrosplenial,
and medial temporal areas involved in memory
processing. In sum, the OmFC, by virtue of its
connections with cortical areas and with specific
subcortical regions, is in a critical position to process
information relevant for emotion and to control
emotional output. The precise synaptic organization of
the cortical and subcortical circuits involved in emotional
processing through the OmFC is, however, largely
unresolved. Approaches to fill this knowledge gap will be
discussed.
Carmen Cavada leads the research group “Primate
Central Nervous System: Architecture and Disease
Models”. Her prime broad objective is understanding
primate, including human, brain structure. She has
studied the connections of the parietal and frontal
association areas. More recently, she has been interested
on the dopaminergic innervation of diverse brain centers,
including the thalamus, striatum, amygdala and cerebral
cortex, and is engaged in projects aiming at generating
and evaluating primate models of neurological
conditions, including Parkinson’s disease.
She trained as MD at the University of Bilbao, and after
her PhD work at the Autonomous University of Madrid,
she did postdoctoral work at Erasmus University
(Rotterdam, The Netherlands, with HGJM Kuypers) and
Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA, with PS GoldmanRakic). She is currently a Professor at the Autonomous
University of Madrid, Medical School.
Gonzalo Alvarez-Bolado
Anatomy, University of Heidelberg,
Embryonic Development of Emotional Circuits
Monday, October 20, 09:00-09:30
The prenatal development of the brain is to a large extent
under genetic regulation and generates a “scaffolding”
for the essential learning processes that occur after birth.
This applies also to the emotional brain, which is formed
by a number of heterogeneous structures of the central
nervous system including neocortical areas, the
hippocampus, the preoptic area, amygdala and septum,
the hypothalamus, some thalamic nuclei and the “core”
and “paracore” regions of the the brainstem. These are
interconnected by complex axonal pathways only
partially elucidated.
Important advances have been made in our
understanding of the formation of some portions of this
system. The specification of cortical regions (including
those involved in the processing of emotions) is starting
to be understood even at the most fundamental
molecular level. In particular, it is becoming clear how
partially overlapping expression of transcription factor
genes regulates a limited number of specific enhancers
whose activity in turn defines the protodomains that will
become the adult regions of the cortex. The genetic
control of cell fate acquisition by the nuclei of the “limbic
thalamus” is being unraveled as well. Because of its
involvement in eating behaviors (which in turn have a
strong emotional component), the development of the
hypothalamus is the focus of intense research. The
outlines are appearing of the regulation of hypothalamic
regional specification, its subdivision into domains
following a longitudinal axis and the formation of the
corresponding hypothalamic nuclei.
The field is rich however in unanswered questions. The
ontogenesis of other key portions of the emotional brain
like the amygdala, the septum and the limbic brainstem
is only starting to attract attention. Even more mysterious
is the question of how the axonal pathways between the
different parts are established. A possible model would
be the emergence of thalamo-cortical connections (in the
somatosensory system), a dynamic process involving axo-
11
axonal “handshake” interactions and guidepost cells.
Circuits labeled by restricted gene expression, like certain
amygdalo-hypothalamic projections, offer another
possible mechanism for interconnectivity. And classical
hypotheses linking pathway formation to neurogenetic
birthdate or to specific adhesion molecule combinations
have yet to be put to the test systematically in the limbic
system.
We do not know to which degree our emotional life is
pre-established by these ontogenetic mechanisms
(nature vs nurture). But since their alteration can bear an
effect on adult behavior, research to their elucidation
deserves renewed efforts.
Gonzalo Alvarez-Bolado, MD, PhD, leads the research
group “Gehirnentwicklung” in the Dept. of Neuroanatomy
of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He became an
adept of the hypothalamus religion while working as a
postdoc with Larry Swanson at the University of Southern
California, Los Angeles. Later he went to work with Peter
Gruss in the Max Planck Institute (Göttingen, Germany) to
learn how to use molecular genetics to understand
neuroanatomy. Ever since then, he and his group
generate and analyze mouse mutants to figure out how
such a complex structure as the hypothalamus selfassembles.
Gert Holstege
University of Queensland, Australia,
How the emotional motor system controls the pelvic
organs
Monday, October 20, 09:30-10:00
Micturition (urination), defecation, ejaculation and child
delivery can only take place when the individual finds
him- or herself in safe circumstances, because such
activities are incompatible with fight or fly. For this
reason the function of the pelvic organs as bladder,
uterus, ovaries, prostate, testicles, and rectum, as well as
the pelvic floor muscles, has to be under precise control
of the central nervous system. The importance of this
control is also shown by patients who suffer from a
transection of the thoracic spinal cord, often caused by a
traffic accident. These patients suffer more from the
inability to control their pelvic organs than from their
inability to walk. This presentation is about how pelvic
organ control is organized. In simple terms, the pelvic
organs spinal relay center (POSRC), a cell group in the
sacral cord dorsal horn receives, via the pelvic nerve,
information about the situation in the pelvic organs. It
forwards this information via long ascending pathways
specifically to the central part of the midbrain
periaqueductal gray (PAG). The PAG, in turn, has access
to the pelvic organ stimulating center (POSC) in the
dorsal pontine tegmentum. The POSC, via long
descending pathways, maintains direct connections with
the parasympathetic motoneurons in the sacral cord.
They innervate, via the pelvic nerve, all the pelvic organs
and via the pudendal nerve, the pelvic floor muscles.
Recent PET-scan studies in humans have shown that the
POSC and PFSC are also active during male ejaculation
and female orgasm. The PAG not only receives
information from the pelvic organs, but also from the
brain regions taking part in the emotional motor system
(EMS), such as the amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria
terminalis, hypothalamus and, especially in humans, the
medial orbitofrontal cortex. Via these pathways the EMS
controls the pelvic organs. Lesions in these PAG afferent
pathways cause urinary and fecal urge-incontinence in
the elderly, one of the most awful diseases at present.
Gert Holstege, MD, PhD, completed his MD at the
Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he continued to
work as a neuroscientist with Hans Kuypers. He
discovered the “Emotional Motor System”, which controls
the general level setting systems, as well as blood
pressure, heart rate, breathing and the activities of the
pelvic organs such as micturition and sexual behavior.
After working in California for the NASA for 3 years, he
joined the University of Groningen (Netherlands), where
he became a Full Professor of Neuroanatomy, and where
he started to study human behavior using PET-scanning.
After retirement he holds a position at the University of
Queensland (Australia). His main interest focuses on
clinical problems concerning pelvic organ control such as
urge-incontinence in the elderly and hypoactive sexual
desire disorder (HSDD).
Coffee Break 10.00-10.30
Marco Celio
Anatomy, University of Fribourg, Fribourg (Switzerland)
The lateral hypothalamus and the expression of
emotions
Monday, October 20, 10:30-11:00
The lateral hypothalamus is an extension of the
brainstem reticular formation and, as such, it is difficult to
subdivide into circumscribed anatomical entities. In the
most ventrolateral portion of the lateral hypothalamus, a
horizontally orientated chord of parvalbumin-positive
neurons, which is surrounded by a cuff of Foxb1expressing neurons, has been identified. The
glutamatergic neurons of this PV1-Foxb1 nucleus project
predominantly to the periaqueductal gray and to its
direct surroundings. Various neuropeptides and receptors
are expressed by the neurons of the PV1-Foxb1 nucleus,
and gene array- analysis has disclosed it to be the target
of an important ascending glycinergic inhibitory input. A
direct excitatory projection from the latero-orbital
12
prefrontal cortex sends collaterals to the PV1-Foxb1
nucleus, continue towards the PAG and the rostral
brainstem and ends intermingling with terminals deriving
from the PV1-Foxb1 nucleus itself. Using the transsynaptic rabies-virus tracing technique, a brain-wide
mapping of the afferences of the PV1-Foxb1 nucleus has
revealed an extraordinary richness of sources. Preliminary
data gleaned from experiments with excitotoxins in rats
and chemogenetic approaches in mice indicate that the
PV1-Foxb1 nucleus plays a role in the sensation of pain,
as well as in the control of blood pressure and
vocalization. This recondite portion of the hypothalamus
thus appears to be implicated in the expression of
emotions and the associated autonomic responses.
Marco Celio, MD, is an anatomist at the University of
Fribourg (Switzerland). After having spent his
postdoctoral fellowship with Wofgang Zenker in Zürich
(to study neuroanatomy) and Floyd Bloom at the SalkInstitute in La Jolla (for an introduction into
neuroscience), he became anatomy professor in Kiel
(Germany) in the former lab of one of the discoverers of
Neurosecretion (Wolfgang Bargmann). Since 1989 he
continues in Fribourg his research on the use of calcium
binding proteins as neuronal markers. The serendipitous
observation of a tiny, parvalbumin-positive string of
neurons in the ventrolateral hypothalamus lead him to
spent two sabbaticals in the lab of Clif Saper, Boston, to
study their connectivity. This lateral hypothalamic nucleus
and its possible involvement in emotional expression is
Marco's main scientific preoccupation.
Hari Subramanian
University of Queensland,
The periaqueductal gray and control of emotional
expression
Monday, October 20, 11:00-11:15
Short talk
The PAG is a critical realy of the limbic brain and
determines motor expression of emotions [such as
vocalization (speech in humans), laughing, crying, fear
and anxiety]. This includes facial modulation, laryngeal,
pharyngeal, respiratory and cardiovascular control, and
control of autonomic systems that is required for
expression of emotions. For this the PAG maintains
strong connections to the pre-motor inter-neuronal
control circuits located in the caudal brainstem and spinal
cord. We previously (references 1-5) have examined the
motor expression of emotions and associated autonomic
changes that can be produced from various parts of the
PAG. However it is not known what type of activity
patterns the PAG neurons express in vivo. In this study
the PAG was mapped for extracellular neuronal activity
within its various subregions in the rat and cat during
triggered emotional and autonomic expression in vivo.
Electrophysiological characteristics such as burst
frequency & adaptation, power & amplitude density,
threshold activation constants, inter-spike intervals and
the topography of neuronal circuit function was
investigated. The PAG was found to be predominantly
quiescent in the resting state. Silent PAG cells could be
activated by iontophoresis of DL Homocysteic acid (DLH)
an excitatory amino acid glutamate agonist. Cells made
to fire in this manner ceased activity when either DLH
ejection was terminated or by co-iontophoresis of
muscimol (GABA agonist). Spontaneoulsy active cells
were very few, restricted to the dorsal PAG region and
these cells recorded extracellularly typically fired in a slow
and irregular pattern. Activation of either behavioural
(such as vocalization, fear) and/or autonomic
interventions caused immediate activation of PAG
neurons mainly in the lateral and ventrolateral PAG. In
such instances, lateral and ventrolateral PAG cells showed
two distinct types of activity patterns; 1) single spike
firing and 2) burst firing, The cells fired both tonically and
phasically when correlated with specific autonomic
output such as the diaphragm EMG. Predominantly the
non-bursting PAG neurons had a near normal
distribution around 200 to 250 msec, while burst-firing
cells typically showing a bimodal distribution. The
functional implications of PAG circuit physiology are
discussed in terms of descending motor and autonomic
control of emotional expression.
1. Subramanian et al (2008). Journal of Neuroscience.
28(47):12274-12283.
2. Subramanian & Holstege (2009). Journal of
Neuroscience, 29(12): 3824-32.
3. Subramanian & Holstege G (2011). Journal of
Neurophysiology. 105(6): 2852-62.
4. Subramanian (2013). Journal of Physiology, 591:109-22.
5. Subramanian & Holstege (2013). Journal of
Comparative Neurology: 521(13):3083-98.
Elise Wattendorf
Anatomy and Program in Neuroscience, University of
Fribourg, Fribourg
Hypothalamic involvement in laughter and related
anticipatory processes
Monday, October 20, 11:15-11:30
Short talk
Anticipation of tickling is intimately related to the
ensuing laughter reaction. A similar sensory related
network is known to be activated before just as during
the stimulation itself, presumably to increase accuracy
and speed of the behavioral response. Yet, concerning
the motor control of laughter, only brain regions related
to real-time processing are known. Here, the midbrain
periaqueductal gray (PAG) acts as coordination center
and receives input from limbic related regions such as the
hypothalamus and the basal ganglia. Our previous
13
functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study confirmed
involvement of these brain regions during laughter. A
new imaging study was designed to investigate the
sequence of neuronal processes related to ticklish
laughter, in particular emotional and motor-related
processes preceding the vocalization. Our data reveal
that increasing duration of anticipation is related to
higher activity in the anterior insula, the nucleus
accumbens and the lateral posterior hypothalamus. Real
somatosensory stimulation activates middle and
posterior parts of the insula, the putamen, the lateral,
posterior hypothalamus and the periaqueductal gray
(PAG). On the one hand, expectation of the sensory
stimulation involves neuronal processes related to
subjective emotional appraisal. On the other hand,
activity related to true tickling confirms existing data
which point to a pivotal function of the hypothalamus
and the PAG during expression of positive emotions.
Consistent with its potential in connecting emotional with
motor related processes during the preparation of ticklish
laughter, hypothalamic activity comprises both the
anticipatory and stimulation related periods of time.
Henry Evrard
Max Planck Institut for Biological Kybernetik, Tübingen,
Germany
Organization of the primate insular cortex
Monday, October 20, 11:30-11:45
Short talk
We
combine
neuroanatomical,
functional,
and
comparative approaches to investigate the organization
of the primate insula. Cyto- and myelo-architectonic
examinations in the macaque monkey showed that the
classical granular, dysgranular and agranular sectors of
the insula are subdivided into respectively 4, 4, and 7
consistent and sharply delimited areas. Two granular
areas, ‘Idfp’ and ‘Idfa’, form a continuous longitudinal
strip in the fundus of the superior limiting sulcus of the
insula (SLS); they constitute together the ‘primary
interoceptive cortex’. Functional imaging combined with
tracer injection in the loci of BOLD signal confirmed that
Idfp is consistently activated by graded innocuous and
noxious temperatures and receives specific and
topographically organized thalamocortical projections
from the posterior part of the ventromedial thalamic
nucleus (VMpo). Injections in Idfa revealed largely
segregated projections from the basal part of the
ventromedial nucleus (VMb) suggesting separate
representations of distinct food-related and taste
activities. The dysgranular areas ventral to the SLS
contain subtle architectonic ‘modules’ arrayed in distinct
longitudinal strips parallel to the SLS. Ongoing tracing
experiments indicate that each module has a distinct set
of neuronal connections and suggest the existence of a
vertical granular-to-dysgranular integration of the
interoceptive afferents of Idfp and Idfa with salient
proprioceptive, environmental and limbic inputs from the
rest of the brain across the dysgranular modules. Large
tracer injections covering the agranular areas produced
dense retrograde labeling in the dysgranular areas,
suggesting dysgranular-to-agranular projections that
could be necessary for generating coherent homeostatic
emotions. One agranular area, ‘Ial’, specifically contains
the von Economo neuron (VEN) and its fork cell
companion (renamed “fork neuron”, FN). Tracer injections
in the brainstem showed that both cells project to
specific periaqueductal gray (PAG) columns and could
provide a sensory feedback complement to the efferent
projections of the cingulate cortex to PAG. A comparison
of the areal distribution of the VEN in monkeys and
humans indicate that the human VEN occurs in a
disproportionately larger region and within more than
one architectonic area, consistent with recent evidence
that
the
human
anterior
insula
developed
disproportionally more than the rest of the insula and the
brain. Although there is no direct anatomical and
functional homolog of the human anterior and mid insula
in the macaque monkey, the present findings could
provide major clues on the basic principles of
organization of a brain region that uniquely evolved in
humans to engender subjective awareness of feelings.
Lunch 12.30 – 13.45
Neurophysiology: Chair W. Schultz
Wolfram Schultz
University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Reward, learning and choices
Monday, October 20, 14:00-14:30
Rewards can be conceptualised as probability
distributions of value, which offers a formal approach to
the study of value and risk. Key parameters defining
probability distributions are expected value and standard
deviation (risk). Thus value and risk are fundamental
reward characteristics and important variables for
economic decision making. We will show that the
dopamine reward signal codes the subjective value for
the individual decision maker rather than objective
(physical) value in temporal discounting and other
behavioural situations.
The second moment of reward probability distributions,
standard deviation, is a good measure of economic risk.
Monkeys are risk seeking with the usually employed,
small rewards but show risk neutrality and even risk
avoidance with higher volumes. Indeed, dopamine
neurons and neurons in orbitofrontal cortex code risk,
separately from value. Humans show prefrontal risk
14
signals that reflect individual risk attitudes and affect
value signals according to basic concepts of economic
utility theory.
Amygdala reward signals comply with the most basic
requirement for learning (contingency), show systematic
variations with the instantaneous probability of expected
rewards and predict economic choices in save-spend
decisions. Our social studies on interacting monkeys
identify neuronal reward observation and agency signals.
Wolfram Schultz graduated in medicine from the
University of Heidelberg and did postdoctoral training in
Germany, the US and Sweden. He was a Professor of
Neurophysiology at the University of Fribourg,
Switzerland and moved to the University of Cambridge,
where he is Welcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and
Professor of Neuroscience. He studies the brain's reward
system,
including
dopamine
neurons,
using
neurophysiology in behavioural tasks informed by animal
learning theory and economic decision theory.
Ralph Adolphs
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Single-unit recordings of emotion in the human brain
Monday, October 20, 14:30-15:00
Emotions can be thought of as internal states with
specific functional properties. Those functional properties
are reflected in neurophysiological measures. I will review
work by our group on single-unit recordings from the
human amygdala, relate these findings to lesion and fMRI
studies, and also to abnormal emotion processing in
autism. I will conclude with a framework for how to
operationalize and study emotions.
Single-unit recordings can be obtained from the
amygdala in neurosurgical patients who are being
monitored for epilepsy surgery. We have found robust
neuronal responses to faces that express specific
emotions, and in particular to those regions of the face
that are the most informative about the emotion (the
eyes and the mouth). Amygdala neurons track the
subjective judgment of the emotion, rather than the
objective emotion displayed on the stimulus.
These findings fit with data from patients who have
amygdala lesions, and who are impaired in both the
recognition of, and the subjective experience of
emotions—particularly fear. The findings also fit with
some of the deficits seen in people with autism. We
recently found that single neurons within the amygdala
of patients with autism fail to encode information about
the eye regions of faces.
Finally, all these studies raise the challenge of how to
operationalize “emotions” so that they can be studied
scientifically. I suggest we separate the functional
characteristics of emotions from their subjective
experience, and aim towards functional criteria that could
be used to study emotions across different animal
species.
Ralph Adolphs received his PhD in neurobiology from the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working on
the auditory system of owls. He then did a postdoc with
Antonio Damasio at the University of Iowa, conducting
cognitive neuroscience studies in lesion patients. In 2004
he returned to Caltech, where he now holds the Bren
Professorship of Psychology and Neuroscience and
directs a Conte Center on the Neurobiology of Social
Decision-Making. His research focuses on social
neuroscience, and includes studies of lesion patients and
people with autism in order to understand how the brain
generates social behavior. He lives with his wife and two
cats close to Caltech and likes running in the mountains,
eating good food, and drinking good beer.
Angela Roberts
Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience,
Cambridge, UK
Prefrontal contribution to the regulation of positive
and negative emotional states
Monday, October 20, 15:00-15:30
Emotional states can be elicited as a consequence of the
cognitive appraisal of motivationally relevant stimuli in
the external world. They can be considered as the
product of changes across a wide range of output
pathways including behavioural, autonomic and
endocrine. Whilst there has been considerable
investigation into the neurobiological mechanisms
underlying the processing of reward and punishment and
their effects on the observed behaviour and decision
making of animals, less attention has been paid to the
other physiological aspects of the emotional state.
To address this issue we have developed a program of
investigation into the regulation of both positive and
negative emotional states in the marmoset monkey
measuring behavioural and cardiovascular responses to
positive and aversive Pavlovian conditioned stimuli.
Focussing on the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) we have
shown that anterior regions of medial OFC (area 11) are
important in regulating both appetitive and aversive
conditioned emotional responses and that localised
excitotoxic lesions of this region cause a fractionation of
the emotional response. In a conflict decision making
task, which pits punishment against reward, comparison
of the contribution of the antOFC with another region
that has been implicated in the regulation of emotional
states, the ventrolateral PFC (area 12/47), reveals the
dissociable contribution of these two regions to the
decision making process.
Angela Roberts is Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience in
the Departement of Physiology, Development and
15
Neuroscience (PDN) at the University of Cambridge,
where she is the scientific director of the marmoset brain
research center. After graduating in Neurobiology in the
University of Sussex, she received a PhD in
Neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge,
where she became specialized in primate behavioral
neuroscience. Her main research interests are the
executive control functions of the prefrontal cortex and
related brain structures such as the basal ganglia and the
amygdala. Current work in her lab aims to identify the
neural circuits that are dysregulated in anxiety and mood
disorders as well as obsessive compulsive disorders.
Coffee Break 15.30-16.00
Steve Kennerley
Soberly Dept. of Motor Neuroscience, University College,
London
Deciding how to decide: the role of the prefrontal
cortex
Monday, October 20, 16:00-16:30
We have known since the case of Phineas Gage in 1848
that regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are essential
for emotion, decision-making and goal-directed
behavior. Over the past 15 years, results from human
neuroimaging and animal electrophysiology studies have
all highlighted that a set of PFC areas – the anterior
cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC),
orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial PFC (VMPFC)
– are modulated by reward and/or decision-making tasks.
Yet what remains relatively elusive is a neural signature of
“how” each PFC area contributes to decision-making.
Recent lesion studies provide some insight into this issue:
ACC lesions cause deficits in action based decision
making, whereas OFC lesions disrupt stimulus based
decision making. This suggests neurons within different
PFC subregions may represent relevant decision
attributes in different value reference frames. Further,
optimal decision-making often requires a decision about
what information to use to compare decision alternatives.
Here I will discuss recent electrophysiological results
obtained while subjects gathered information in a
sequential multi-attribute decision making task. On every
trial, subjects were presented with decisions between two
options (left/right), each comprising two pictures
associated with the reward probability and size of the
option. On some trials, we controlled the order in which
information was presented, allowing us to constrain
whether an option (left vs right) or attribute (reward
probability vs magnitude) comparison could be made.
Subjects were free to view the cues as they were
presented, thus eye movements provided a proxy for the
information gathering strategies influencing decisionmaking. A normative dynamic programming approach
was used to derive the optimal information gathering
strategy. When the first picture was attended, a
significant proportion of neurons throughout all four of
the aforementioned PFC areas encoded its value.
However, neurons in ACC and DLPFC differentially
encoded cue value based on an action reference frame,
while OFC neurons differentially encoded cue value
based on the decision attribute, replicating the lesionbased double dissociation between these two regions. As
more information was obtained, value signals evolved
from encoding the value of what was currently attended
to what would be eventually chosen. By utilizing the
natural dynamics of the information gathering and choice
strategies, we provide evidence of “how” different PFC
subpopulations make simultaneous (but specialized)
contributions to value computation and comparison.
Steve Kennerley is a Senior Lecturer in the Sobell
Department of Motor Neuroscience at University College
London (UCL). His research focuses on understanding the
neuronal mechanisms underlying reinforcement learning,
decision-making and action selection. His PhD work with
Prof. Matthew Rushworth (Oxford) used interference
techniques (TMS, lesion studies) to establish the essential
role of different medial frontal regions in these processes.
His post-doc with Prof. Jonathan Wallis (Berkeley)
described the functional specialization of neurons in
different prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions during working
memory and decision making tasks. His current research
explores the neural basis of model-based versus modelfree reinforcement learning, in addition to his ongoing
work describing the types of neural computations
performed by different PFC regions during the evolution
of a decision process.
Igor Kagan
Deutsches Primatenzentrum, Göttingen
Integration of reward, effort and risk in decisionmaking
Monday, October 20, 16:30-17:00
Decision-making often involves weighing the benefits
(e.g. reward) and costs (e.g. effort) of several options.
Humans and animals generally avoid effortful actions
when a similarly rewarded low-effort option is available,
but are willing to expend more effort to attain a higher
gain. Additionally, the subjective value of the options can
be modulated by the attitude to the outcome
uncertainty. It has been shown that monkeys exhibit riskseeking behavior when making choices with low-effort
eye movements. We studied the integration of effort and
risk variables in the arm reaching task entailing different
levels of effort and reward. Similarly to eye movements,
monkeys showed risk-seeking behavior in the reaching
task, preferring a risky gamble over a certain option even
when the expected value of a certain option was higher.
16
However, monkeys were much more willing to gamble
with low-effort as compared to high-effort actions,
suggesting that the effort diminishes the risk-seeking
behavior.
To understand how different decision variables are
represented in the neural circuitry, we are perturbing
activity in specific brain regions and establishing a causal
link between changes in neuronal patterns and behavior.
Here I will focus on reversible pharmacological
inactivation and electrical microstimulation of the
thalamic pulvinar, an area that might be involved in the
integration of visuomotor contingencies. I will show how
the suppression or the enhancement of pulvinar activity
affects choice behavior, and hypothesize on the
contribution of the pulvinar to goal-directed actions.
Igor Kagan leads the Decision and Awareness Group at
the German Primate Center in Goettingen. He obtained
his PhD from the Israel Institute of Technology and
Harvard Medical School, working on neurophysiology of
active vision in primates. During a postdoc in the Richard
Andersen Lab at Caltech he developed fMRI techniques
to study spatial decision-making in behaving monkeys, in
combination with inactivation and electrophysiology. His
main research interests are interhemispheric and
thalamocortical mechanisms of value- and effort-based
decisions, and the cross-species comparison between
humans and monkeys.
Sarah Garfinkel
Sackler Center for Consciousness, University of Sussex,
Brighton, UK
Embodied emotions: cardiovascular coupling with
emotion types
Monday, October 20, 17:00-17:20
20’ talk
Emotion and cognition are dynamically coupled to bodily
arousal. The physiological dimension to emotional
processing is widely recognised, yet relatively poorly
understood mechanistically. Using a combination of
neuroimaging, autonomic monitoring and affective
psychological challenges in patients and healthy
individuals we are characterising the neural processes
that link visceral function and mental state, which suggest
both emotion-specific interactions and important
individual differences. The present focus of our research
is on the expression and attenuation of anxiety, the role
of cardiovascular responses on the processing of threat
and safety signals and the physiological expression and
behavioural impact of relaxation states and anger. One
experimental strategy to assess how bodily arousal
influences cognitive and emotional processes is to
capitalize on naturally-occurring bodily fluctuations,
notably cardiovascular rhythmicity. In the cardiac cycle,
the strength and timing of individual heartbeats is
encoded by bursts of afferent neural activity from arterial
baroreceptors to brainstem during systole (ventricular
ejection period). Emotional feelings, notably anxiety, may
be intensified by feedback regarding the state of
cardiovascular arousal. By exploiting heart timing to tap
into this afferent cardiac feedback pathway, we have
shown that fear processing is accentuated by concurrent
baroreceptor activation in both healthy controls and
phobic patients. These effects have implications for fear
extinction and anxiety management and are mediated
within the brain by amygdala. Anger represents an
approach, rather than withdrawal, emotion, often
facilitating action. We show that subliminal presentation
of anger stimuli raises blood pressure and increases
performance accuracy on a perceptual decision-making
task, yet impair reaction time measures of performance
on a semantic/lexical decision-making task where
relaxation states facilitated performance. During this
lexical decision-making task, subliminal processing of
anger, and its expression as blood pressure elevation,
were associated with enhanced activity within pons and
amygdala, yet there was widespread attenuation of
activity across occipital, parietal and frontal cortices.
These studies extend work we conducted investigating
the networks involved in positive and negative selfgenerated thoughts, where individual differences in
emotional temperament modulated the networks support
positive and negative thinking as function of focus in
time. Our experimental findings illustrate the value of
integrating physiological and neuroimaging techniques
in affective neuroscience and highlight bidirectional
coupling of cognitive and autonomic responses in
emotion. We are now characterising clinical relevance
and potential application of these phenomena.
Urs Albrecht
Biochemistry, University of Fribourg, Fribourg
Circadian clock in mood related behaviors
Monday, October 20, 17:20-17:35
Short talk
The circadian clock has been implicated in addiction and
several forms of depression. However, the molecular
mechanisms involving the circadian clock in these
processes are not known. Because dopamine may play an
important role, we analyzed the murine promoters of
genes encoding key enzymes important in dopamine
metabolism. We find that transcription of the monoamine
oxidase A (Maoa) promoter is regulated by the clock
components Bmal1, Npas2 and Per2. A mutation in the
clock gene Per2 in mice leads to reduced expression and
activity of MAOA in the mesolimbic dopaminergic system,
a reward circuit involved in addiction and depression.
Furthermore, we observe increased levels of dopamine
and altered neuronal activity in the striatum, leading to
behavioral alterations in Per2 mutant mice in despair-
17
based tests. These findings indicate a role of circadian
clock components in dopamine metabolism highlighting
a role of the clock in regulating mood related behaviors.
Kallia Apazoglou
LABNIC, Campus Biotech, Geneva, CH
Reversal Olfactory Learning
Monday, October 20, 17:35-17:50
Short talk
We use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in
order to determine how and to what extend olfactory
stimuli i) affect cognitive procedures and ii) are affected
by mood. In our study we deliver an olfactory stimulus as
the outcome of a chosen visual stimulus in order to
induce associative learning in humans. The design
consists of three abstract photos (fractals) among which
the individual is forced to choose one. An odour is
delivered after a 5sec delay according to a probabilistic
association of the chosen photo with one of three
possible groups of odours. The participant has to explore
and learn successive associations for each visual stimulus
in order to receive a group of odours he prefers or to
avoid a group that he dislikes. By using different
combinations of odours, initial associative learning and
subsequent reversal are examined when driven by the
selection of a liked odor or avoidance of a disliked odor
or both. Model-based fMRI analyses are performed by
taking into account predictive values and errors
calculated
by
a
computational
model
of
reward/avoidance-based learning. Results highlight both
common and partly distinct brain circuits for learning
from liked and disliked odors, including differential
recruitment of affective and salience networks
encompassing the amygdala, hippocampus, striatum,
insula, and anterior cingulate cortex.
Poster Session and Drinks 18.00 – 19.30
Dinner 19.30 – 21.00
18
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21
Neurology: Chair C. Bassetti
Clif Saper
Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Circuitry producing cataplexy in response to positive
emotions
Tuesday, October 21, 08:30-09:00
Since the early descriptions by Gelineau in the 1870’s and
Kinnier Wilson in the 1920’s, it has been recognized that
cataplexy is a pathognomic sign of narcolepsy. The
sudden onset of paralysis most commonly occurs during
a positive emotion, most commonly laughter, but
sometimes eating or during sexual behavior. The
relationship between the two has long been a mystery.
Our laboratory recently identified a set of REM sleepactive glutamatergic neurons in the sublaterodorsal area
of the pons which have direct projections to the
ventromedial medulla and the spinal cord, where they
contact GABA and/or glycine containing neurons. The
latter are thought to inhibit alpha-motor neurons in the
spinal cord, producing atonia during REM sleep.
We also found GABAergic inputs to these neurons from a
REM-off region in the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray
matter and adjacent lateral pontine tegmentum , where
inhibition of the neurons causes increased REM sleep and
episodes of cataplexy. This REM-off region, in turn,
receives intense input from the orexin-hypocretin
neurons in the lateral hypothalamus, whose loss causes
narcolepsy.
We have posited that it there may be inhibitory inputs to
the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray region from
forebrain sites that are activated during strong positive
emotions. This input would cause the “weak in the knees”
feeling that some people experience during intense
laughter, but could not cause full cataplexy because the
same emotions would activate orexin neurons, which
excite the REM-off neurons and prevent atonia. However,
in individuals lacking orexin neurons, the inhibition of the
REM-off neurons during positive emotions would be
unopposed and could cause cataplexy.
To test this hypothesis, we looked for a positive
experience in mice that would cause intense cataplexy.
We found that consumption of chocolate caused eight
times as much cataplexy as usual in orexin-knockout
mice. We then looked at cFos expression in the brains of
those animals, and found that there was particularly
intense expression in the medial prefrontal cortex and the
central nucleus of the amygdala, and that this cFos
expression correlated with the number of minutes spent
in cataleptic attacks. We then disabled each of these
structures in turn, and found that the amount of
cataplexy induced by chocolate was diminished in each
case.
Our findings implicate the medial prefrontal cortex and
the central nucleus of the amygdala as sites in the
forebrain that may process positive emotions that result
in mild muscle weakness in intact individuals and in
cataplexy in narcoleptics who have lost their orexin
neurons.
Clifford Saper, MD, is the James Jackson Putnam
Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and
the Chairman of the Department of Neurology at BIDMC.
The focus of the Saper laboratory is on the integrated
functions maintained by the hypothalamus. These include
regulation of wake-sleep cycles, body temperature, and
feeding. These functions interact with one another
extensively, and all three are driven by homeostatic
mechanisms as well as by circadian influences. We also
are interested in determining the homologous circuitry in
human brains, and in determining how it may be
disrupted in specific neurological and psychiatric
disorders.
Christian Lüscher
Depts. of Basic and Clinical Neurosciences, University of
Geneva, Geneva
Recovering from too strong reward: towards a
synaptic model of addiction
Tuesday, October 21, 09:00-09:30
Dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA)
code for the prediction error of reward. While this activity
is transient (typically lasting less than 100 ms), it has a
strong impact on learning. Addictive drugs on the other
hand activate the mesolimbic system for tens of minutes.
We therefore searched for synaptic traces after such
strong stimulation and how they relate to adaptive
behavior. We show that starting with the first dose,
addictive drugs evoke various forms of synaptic plasticity
of glutamate and GABA transmission in the VTA and the
nucleus accumbens and causally relate them to adaptjve
behavior.
We also show that selective, optogenetic self-stimulation
of VTA DA neurons is sufficient to cause drug-evoked
synaptic plasticity and adaptive behavior. Our
observations converge on a unifying hypothesis of
addiction as a behavioral disease of pathological synaptic
transmission.
Christian Lüscher, MD, is full professor of Neuroscience at
the University of Geneva, Switzerland and a clinical
neurologist at the Geneva University Hospital. His main
research topic is the cellular mechanisms that underlie
drug reinforcement and addiction. His aim is to establish
links of causality between the synaptic changes and
adaptive behavior, to design in vivo stimulation protocols
to reverse drug-evoked plasticity to abolish drugadapative behavior.
19
Patrik Vuilleumier
Neurology, University of Geneva,
Brain
systems
underlying
the
perception,
representation, and control of different types of
emotions
Tuesday, October 21, 09:30-10:00
Emotions do not only serve to assign a particular value to
objects or events forming the content of consciousness,
but can directly influence perception and thus shape the
content of consciousness and action. The talk will
describe brain mechanisms by which positive or negative
emotional episodes can differentially influence mental
states and cognitive functions in a sustained manner,
over prolonged period of time following the emotion
eliciting events.
In particular, functional neuroimaging studies in healthy
people and psychiatric patients demonstrate lasting
changes in activity and functional connectivity of brain
networks following transient emotions, which are
strongly modulated by individual affective traits or
personality factors. These findings have implications for
better understanding and assessing changes in brain
function associated with mood and anxiety disorders.
Patrik Vuilleumier, professor at Neurology Service,
University Hospitals of Geneva is a neurologist who is
using brain imaging techniques (such as functional
resonance magnetic imaging, fMRI) to study the cerebral
mechanisms of emotion and awareness. He pursued his
research in cognitive neurosciences at the University of
California in Davis and then at University College London.
His current research investigates neural circuits in the
human brain enabling emotion signals to influence
perception and guide behavior, as well as the effect of
brain lesions on emotion processes and consciousness
and disturbances associated with psychiatric diseases.
Coffee Break 10.00-10.30
Claudio Bassetti
Neurology, University of Berne, Berne
The neurology of laughter
Tuesday, October 21, 10:30-11:00
While the biological significance of laughter and humour
remains controversial, the brain structures involved in the
production of laughter are relatively well known.
The first studies of Duchenne de Boulogne and Darwin
investigating the motor correlates and the evolutional
aspects of laughter, respectively, were followed in the last
150 years by studies elucidating the neuroanatomy, the
neurophysiology and the neurochemistry of the so-called
laughter-network in normal subjects.
Until recently, however, only few studies analyzed the
changes of laughter in neurological patients. The
following conditions are known:
- Laughing as trigger of cataplexy (geloplexia).
- Laughter as cause of syncope (“Lachschlag” or gelastic
syncope)
- Laughing as an epileptic manifestation (gelastic seizure)
- Laughing as a manifestation of REM sleep behaviour
disorder (hypnogely)
- Abnormal and excessive laughing in the context of a
lesion of pyramidal pathways(pseudobulbar affect),
sometimes as the first manifestation of stroke (fou rire
prodromique)
- Excessive laughing as a manifestation of a frontal lobe
dysfunction (emotional incontinence)
- Excessive laughter in genetic disorders (Angelman’s or
“happy puppet” syndrome)
- Laughter-like vocalizations in the context to aphasia
- Dissociation between voluntary and emotional laughter
- Laughter (with and without emotion/mirth) following
brain stimulation
The study of laughter in brain disorders has clinical
implications, expands our knowledge on this behavior
and raises new questions about the brain mechanisms for
normal laughter.
Prof. Claudio Bassetti received his MD degree from the
University of Basel in 1984 and was trained in neurology
in Bern and Lausanne. He performed two research
fellowships in basic neurophysiology (Basel, 1985-1986)
and sleep medicine (Ann Arbor-Michigan, USA, 1995-6).
In 2000 he was appointed professor of neurology at the
university of Zurich and director of the neurological
outpatient clinics of the university hospital. In 2009 he
founded the neurocenter of Southern Switzerland in
Lugano which he directed until 2012. Since 2012 he is full
professor of neurology at the university of Bern and
director of the neurology department at the university
hospital.
His topics of interest include general neurology, sleep,
stroke, movement disorders, and translational/animal
research.
René Müri
Neurology, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland
The neurology of facial and emotional expression
Tuesday, October 21, 11:00-11:20
20’ talk
Speech, gestures, and facial expressions play a crucial
role in human communication. Facial expressions are
produced by the innervation of a set of 17 paired mimetic
muscles. They are the result of complex stereotyped
movements of facial muscles due to contraction in certain
combination. Facial expressions are both under volitional
and automatic control. Some facial expressions are
20
believed to represent innate and automatic behavior
patterns. Facial expressions are also fundamental to one’s
sense of well-being and ability to integrate into a social
network. Facial expressions are affected by many
neurological disorders ranging from peripheral affection
of the facial nerve to affections of the brainstem, basal
ganglia, and cortex. Dissociations between volitional and
emotional facial expressions after various brain lesions
suggest also different cerebral influences which descend
onto the final common pathway of facial innervation.
Furthermore, there are hemispheric asymmetries in the
control of facial expression. As a consequence of reduced
or distorted facial expression, patients may have a
relevant handicap in their interpersonal communication
and social life. In addition, such patients may also have
impairment of facial expression recognition and
interpretation.
In my presentation I will discuss the anatomy and
neurophysiology of human facial expression in healthy
subjects and the consequences for the patients with
neurological disorders affecting facial and emotional
expression.
René Müri, MD, is associate professor of Neurology at the
University of Bern Switzerland. He studied medicine and
in 1997 he received the Venia Docendi for neurology. He
was research fellow at the Salpêtrière-hospital, Paris,
France. As researcher, he is investigating the relationships
between normal and deficient attention, perception,
memory and language functions after brain lesions. He
works on developing new non-invasive brain stimulation
methods and techniques to improve neuro-rehabilitation.
recorded their EEG activity. Participants were first
presented with a cue indicative of wins or loses on
upcoming trial, followed by feedback as to whether or
not they were successful in the task. An unbiased analysis
of the entire dataset of the event-related potentials
(ERPs), time-locked to the feedback revealed two distinct
time points of group differences. Results: Both patient
groups had reduced amplitude of the early ERP
component (around 160ms) compared to controls,
suggesting blunted, initial response to reward content.
Around 250ms, recordings from patients showed a clear
ERP which was higher in PD compared to NC
independent of reward magnitude and valence, but
absent in controls. This second potential corresponds
well to the classic feedback-related negativity (FRN) ERP
which is thought to reflect reward prediction error
signaling due to increased mismatch between reward
expectation and outcome in the patients. An increased
FRN thus indicate increased mismatch between reward
expectation and outcome, predominantly in PD patients.
The intermediate FRN response in NC indicates that
those patients are able to form better reward
expectations than the PD patients despite similar
alterations to early reward feedback processing.
Conclusion: Increased neural response in NC patients to
all feedbacks independently of their valence is consistent
with the intriguing clinical observation that cataplexy is
triggered by both positive and negative emotions, but
rather consistently by mere surprise. We conclude that
impairment to dopaminergic function leads directly to
false prediction errors while HCRT disruption will lead to
the same type of errors, yet to a lesser degree, either by
modulating dopaminergic functioning through its direct
connections or indirect mesolimbic pathways.
Ramin Khatami
Clinic Barmelweid, Aaarau,
The role of dopamine and hypocretin in cataplexy.
Tuesday, October 21, 11:20-11:35
Short talk
The roles of dopamine and hypocretin in reward
processing: clues to the pathophysiology of cataplexy
Background: Positive emotions and surprise are the main
triggers for cataplexy, a transient loss of muscle tone in
patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy (NC). NC is a chronic
sleep wake disorder caused by deficient hypocretin
signalling. The proper functioning of the mesolimbic
reward system is largely dependent on the interaction of
hypocretin (HCRT) and dopamine system. In this
experiment we used high-density EEG during anticipation
and feedback of reward to better understand the
temporal dynamics and the various hypocretinergic and
dopaminergic contributions of reward system. Methods:
Twelve patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), dopamine
deficient, as well as 12 HCRT deficient narcolepsycataplexy (NC) patients and 12 healthy controls,
performed a game-like task while 125 scalp electrodes
Jean-Marie Annoni
Neurology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg (Switzerland)
Decision making in multiple sclerosis
Tuesday, October 21, 11:35-11:50
Short talk
Decision making (DM) is an important function in
everyday behavior. Studies have initially focused on DM
under ambiguous conditions (i.e., where the risk
associated with a choice is not explicitly given) by using
the Iowa Gambling Task. Performances of multiple
sclerosis (MS) patients at the Iowa Gambling task (which
simulates ecological DM by testing the ability of a subject
or a patient to learn to favor long-term gains) are
defective in relapsing-remitting and progressive MS.
While DM can be preserved in very early patients, we
found by means of a two-year follow-up study that these
abilities rapidly declined over time, independently of
other disease-evolution markers. Recent data concerning
the impact of MS on tasks evaluating DM under explicit
risk conditions (in which decisions have to be made in the
21
presence of explicit information about the potential
consequences of the choice). The quality of DM under
explicit risk was modified by MS in both tasks. The
reduction in the expression of regret resembles previous
results observed after orbitofrontal lesions, but coexisted
with an absence of risk taking and an increased risk
aversion. We also found that MS patients express or
describe less emotions (particularly negative) in such
tasks than control. Such results suggest that MS may
modify the quality of DM by decreasing implicit and
explicit response.
Lunch 12.30 – 13.45
Excursion to the three Castles in
Bellinzona, typical dinner and
Teatro « Dimitri » in Verscio
22
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22
Social Neurosciences: Chair T. Singer
Tania Singer
Max Planck Institute, Leipzig
From Empathy to Compassion and their Plasticity
Wednesday, October 22, 08:30-09:00
Emerging fields such as the social, affective and cognitive
neurosciences have focused on the questions of how
people relate to and understand each other. Hereby, the
ability for cognitive perspective taking is differentiated
from concepts of emotion contagion, empathy, and
compassion; the former represents a cognitive route to
the understanding of others, the latter a motivational and
affective route.
Recently, social neurosciences have started to investigate
the plasticity of the social brain as well as the trainability
of social emotions such as empathy and compassion and
its effects on changes in brain functions associated with
changes in subjective well-being, pro-social behavior,
and health.
After a review of recent psychological and neuroscientific
findings on the effects of mental training on the brain,
subjective experience and behavior, I will provide
empirical evidence for socio-affective brain plasticity after
mental training of empathy or compassion. While
empathy training enhanced negative affect and activation
in brain networks associated with suffering, compassion
training resulted in an increase of positive affect and
activation in brain networks associated to affiliation and
care. More importantly, the latter also enhanced prosocial
behavior.
Finally, I will introduce the ReSource Project, a large-scale
multi-disciplinary and methodological one-year secular
mental training program with more than 180 participants
that aims at the daily cultivation of interoceptive
awareness, perspective taking, empathy and compassion
as well as prosocial motivation and behavior. First results
of this large-scale, multi-method study will be presented
and their implication for clinical science and society in
general will be discussed.
Tania Singer is a neuroscientist and psychologist and
director of the department for social neuroscience at the
Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences in
Leipzig and professor at the Humboldt University in
Berlin. Her main scientific interests are the investigation
of neuronal, behavioral and hormonal processes
underlying human social cognition and behavior. She is
particularly interested in the neuronal correlates of
empathy and compassion and how such social emotions
can foster human cooperation. She is presently running a
large-scale mental training study to investigate the
plasticity of the social brain and its effects on subjective
well-being, stress, health and prosocial behavior.
Furthermore, she is involved in applying her research to
the development of new economic models to move
towards a more caring economy.
Dean Mobbs
Columbia University, N.Y.
The neural basis of social motivators
Wednesday, October 22, 09:00-09:30
Evolutionary biologists have long known that animals will
favor helping those who are genetically-related (kinselection theory) or reciprocate fitness enhancing
behaviors (reciprocal altruism). Several studies conducted
on humans have supported these universal rules showing
that similarity to others can influence how we perceive
and interact with them. In my talk, I first discuss the
evolutionary importance of group living and propose
three core social drives that need to be satisfied for
group living to be successful. These three broad social
drives which include Mutualism, Affiliation and StatusSeeking (MASS drives) have evolved to preserve or
enhance group living: (i) Mutualism involves cooperation,
reciprocity, trust, and fairness; (ii) Affiliation includes
assimilation and belonging where one aims to fit into the
group through adhering to group ideologies, forming
group allegiances including group pride and selective
bonding where strong ties and loyalty are formed with a
small coalition of friends and kin. Orthogonal to these
drives is (iii) Status-Seeking where the goal is to
essentially build one’s value and control in the group and
achieve differential access to mates and other resources.
Fitting with this theory, I will discuss several studies
showing that the need to affiliate results in vicarious
reward when we perceive others to be similar ourselves
and how moral behavior is driven by similarity. We also
attempt to show that these affiliation drives are
underpinned by the selfish motives of status seeking
where it is only rewarding to see others be successful,
when the rewards are self-relevant (i.e. reflected glory)
and that (iv) competition results in a failure to affiliate,
resulting in joy at seeing others fail (i.e. schadenfreude).
Dean Mobbs is assistant professor at the Columbia
University, Department of Psychology. His general area of
research is Social and Affective Neuroscience,
Neuroecology and Neurophilosophy. Currently he
endeavors to understand the central determinants of
human emotional experience and employs brain imaging
(e.g. fMRI) and behavioural techniques to examine the
neurobiological systems that coordinate fear in humans.
His theoretical stance rests on the long-standing view
that fear is an evolutionarily favorable response, whereby
increasingly unambiguous threat leads to a cascade of
defensive responses that can be dichotomized as slow
23
thoughtful actions vs. fast instinctive reactions. A second
stream of research aims to determine the neural proxies
that underlie social cognition. He is currently pursuing
questions of how social behavior orchestrates and shapes
emotion and how such operations are variably disrupted
in psychiatric disorders.
Adam Guastella
University of Sidney, Sidney, Australia
Oxytocin and the social brain
Wednesday, October 22, 09:30-10:00
The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to have a
critical role in social behaviour. Its use has been
suggested to potentially awaken the social brain in
psychiatric disorders. This talk will provide a series of
randomized controlled studies across psychiatric
populations conducted by the author’s team to improve
social function, including applications in young children
with autism as young as 3, into adults with severe
addictions. The outcomes of these trials will be
presented, with some suggesting support for the
potential of oxytocin as a treatment for social
impairments.
Adam Guastella is a Principle Research Fellow at the Brain
& Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney. His
primary interest is in developing novel treatments to
improve social functioning in young patients with mental
health problems. This research has led him to study social
cognition and social anxiety in patients presenting with a
range of mental illnesses (anxiety, autism, psychosis,
substance dependence). He was one of the first to show
that oxytocin enhances emotion understanding in young
people with autism. Currently he is evaluating whether
oxytocin can be used to treat a range of mental health
problems that are primarily associated with a difficulty in
developing social-relationships. This research advances
our basic understanding for evolutionary and biosocial
theories of bonding and attachment in humans and may
lead an exciting new treatment approach for mental
health problems.
Coffee Break 10.00-10.30
Ralph Adolphs
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Attending to the social world
Wednesday, October 22, 10:30-11:00
Social stimuli matter to us: they are salient. Even
newborns already attend to faces. What factors make a
stimulus socially salient, and how does the brain encode
this? I will address this broad issue with two studies that
all involve a disorder in which social saliency is not
processed typically, autism spectrum disorder.
In the first set of studies I will present comparisons
between three intriguing clinical populations: autism,
neurological patients with bilateral amygdala lesions, and
people born without a corpus callosum (the fibers that
connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain). Each
of these disorders share impairments in social
functioning. Amygdala lesions and autism both feature
impaired ability to attend to faces. People born without a
corpus callosum often meet a diagnosis of autism. Taken
together the comparisons across these populations
suggest that the amygdala may encode what is socially
salient, and that communication between left and right
brain hemispheres is essential for higher-order social
cognition. The social disabilities in autism may thus arise,
in at least in part, through dysfunction of the amygdala,
and through abnormal brain connectivity.
Ralph Adolphs received his PhD in neurobiology from the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working on
the auditory system of owls. He then did a postdoc with
Antonio Damasio at the University of Iowa, conducting
cognitive neuroscience studies in lesion patients. In 2004
he returned to Caltech, where he now holds the Bren
Professorship of Psychology and Neuroscience and
directs a Conte Center on the Neurobiology of Social
Decision-Making. His research focuses on social
neuroscience, and includes studies of lesion patients and
people with autism in order to understand how the brain
generates social behavior. He lives with his wife and two
cats close to Caltech and likes running in the mountains,
eating good food, and drinking good beer.
Glenn Fox
University of Southern California, Los Angeles (USA)
Neural correlates of gratitude
Wednesday, October 22, 11:00-11:20
20’ talk
When we are the beneficiaries of good human conduct,
we experience a concert of positive emotions ranging
from relief to elation. These emotions can in turn
motivate us to expend great sums of energy to reward
those near the source of the good conduct. Thus creating
a virtuous cycle fueled by the emotion of gratitude. As a
topic of philosophical inquiry, gratitude has received
volumes of attention, but empirical studies of gratitude
are notably rare; gratitude’s neural and physiological
correlates are only just beginning to be investigated. In
this study, we investigate the neural correlates of
gratitude using an interdisciplinary method. We use
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) combined
with a powerful resource: testimony from survivors of the
Holocaust, housed in the Shoah Foundation Institute’s
24
Visual History Archive at the University of Southern
California. The archive is comprised of over 50,000
videotaped testimonials from survivors of the Holocaust.
We have watched hundreds of these testimonies, from
which we have compiled a collection of scenarios in
which the survivor receives a gift. In the experiment,
participants read these scenarios while we perform fMRI.
For each scenario, participants take the perspective of the
survivor as they read the story and imagine themselves as
the recipient of the gift. The gifts vary by nature. Some
are based on stories where the survivor receives an
insignificant gift, whereas other stories involve gifts that
are lifesaving. For each gift, the participants rate how
much gratitude they felt for the gift, along with how
much effort it took to provide the gift, and how much
they needed the gift. We use multiple regression analyses
to correlate these ratings to each participant’s brain
activity. The participants report that the experience of
going through the experiment increased their
understanding of the Holocaust, and that they have a
deeper empathy for the tragedy. The concert of brain
activity correlating with gratitude encompasses the
bilateral ventral medial prefrontal cortex, the bilateral
anterior cingulate cortex, and the bilateral frontal pole.
These areas of the brain are known for value processing,
self-referential processing and mentalizing. Taken in sum,
these findings form the neural underpinnings of gratitude
and ethical human conduct.
Christin Burgdorf*, Constanze Rinn*,
Gerhard Stemmler
Department of Psychology, Philipps-University, Marburg
Attachment style predicts opioidergic modulation of
warmth liking
Wednesday, October 22, 11:20-11:35
Short talk (* joint first authors)
Attachment style predicts opioidergic modulation of
warmth-liking Christin Burgdorf*, Constanze Rinn* and
Gerhard Stemmler (*joint first authors) The positive
interpersonal emotion of warmth-liking is anchored in
Panksepp’s oxytocin- and opioidergic mediated CARE
system and is regularly activated in close relationships. In
Depue’s neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding,
individual differences in personality and attachment style
contribute to µ-opiate functioning, which is associated
with variations in the magnitude of gratification
experienced from affiliation-elicited reward. Forty-eight
females in a heterosexual relationship took part in a
virtual ball-tossing game with their partners and two
confederates. Participants received either the µ-opioid
antagonist Naltrexone (25 mg) or a placebo in a
randomized double-blind design. Exclusion during the
game reduced feelings of warmth and acceptance, and
increased feelings of sadness and anger. Participants
receiving Naltrexone reported fewer positive feelings of
warmth-liking. Further analyses revealed differential
effects in self reported feelings as well as in cardiovascular parameters as a function of attachment style.
High values in secure bonding ratings predicted higher
levels of warmth-liking and physiological quiescence in
general and besides less negative feelings even in
exclusion condition which can be interpreted in terms of
resilience.
Philip Gerrans
Philosophy and Center for affective Science, Adelaide,
Australia and Geneva
Depersonalization and the insular cortex.
Wednesday, October 22, 11:35-11:50
Short talk
Evidence from psychiatric disorders involving the
experience of depersonalisation can be used to
decompose the causal and cognitive structure of
experiences reported as self-awareness. Insights from
predictive coding theory and the appraisal theory of
emotion explain the association between hypoactivity in
the Anterior Insula Cortex and depersonalization. The
predictive coding theory (i) explains the fact that reduced
affective response in depersonalization is associated with
normal interoception and activity in Posterior Insula
Cortex. (ii) It also elegantly accounts for the role of
anxiety in depersonalisation.
Lunch 12.30 – 13.45
Psychiatry: Chair W. Strik and C.
Calanchini
Ann M. Kring
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley
Schizophrenia and the emotional brain
Wednesday, October 22, 14:00-14:30
My colleagues and I have argued that the time course of
emotional responding is important for understanding
more precisely the nature of emotion and motivation
deficits in schizophrenia. One of the important findings
that has emerged in the last two decades is that people
with schizophrenia can and do experience emotion in the
presence of evocative stimuli, evident at both the
behavioral and neural levels. This suggests somewhat of a
paradox – how can people with schizophrenia have
negative symptoms like anhedonia or avolition yet still
enjoy and participate in pleasurable activities? Deficits
underpinning negative symptoms can be identified when
considering the time course of emotional response.
25
Drawing from our psychophysiological and fMRI studies
that are grounded basic animal and human affective
neuroscience, I will illustrate how people with
schizophrenia have difficulty in anticipation, goaldirected behavior, and maintenance. Using laboratory
and experience sampling studies, our data indicate that
people
with
schizophrenia,
exhibit
comparable
experience and brain activation in the presence of
evocative stimuli. Yet, they fail to anticipate and maintain
this experience, and these deficits are linked to negative
symptoms. These findings have informed the
development of the next-generation symptom rating
scale, the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative
Symptoms (CAINS) as well as psychosocial treatments for
schizophrenia.
Genomic and epigenomic mechanism shape the
emotional brain
Wednesday, October 22, 14:30-15:00
metabolism, the role of epigenetics in the developing
brain and in maintaining a proper brain activity
throughout the various stages of life, other than having
played a critical role in human evolution, is a relatively
new knowledge. We are just beginning to understand the
complexity of such regulatory genome and of its
epigenetic mechanisms.
Epigenetics / regulatory mechanisms can work either
locally – through promoters, enhancers, insulators and
other element controlling for the expression of nearby
genes – or distantly – through a variety of other
mechanisms, like methylation-silencing gene promoters,
transcription factors, short and long non-coding RNAs,
transposable elements and chromatin modifiers. In this
last case, a single mechanism, like a non-coding
microRNA gene for example, can control the coordinated
expression of hundreds of protein-coding genes.
Widespread epigenetic changes have been proposed to
underlie alterations in gene expression associated with
complex
neuropsychiatric
disorders,
including
schizophrenia and affective disorders. Critical control by
chromatin remodeling occurs also in fully differentiated
neurons upon pharmacologic and behavioral challenges.
However, how defective neuronal circuits impinge on the
specificity and extent of epigenetic programs has not
been fully elucidated.
Using combined in-vivo brain imaging genetics and postmortem brain tissue specific investigations, current
research in neuroscience aims at clarifying how our brain
and our behavior are shaped both developmentally and
evolutionarily. The “emotional” and the “social” brain are
privileged targets for these studies, but they represent
more difficult objectives than, say, cognitive and
executive functions. The brain (and the related genomics
and epigenomic) circuits involved in controlling for
emotions and social behaviors imply a variety of
subcortical areas that require sophisticated experimental
approaches to understand how they may work in living
humans.
Here we present the current state-of-the-art of these
studies and our initial findings. Based on our current
accumulated knowledge on the developmental
trajectories of the ventral stream that characterizes the
anatomical foundation of the emotional brain, we
speculate how genomics and epigenomic mechanisms
can modify and potentially alter our emotional brain and
affect our social interactions.
Epigenetic programming and reprogramming are at the
heart of cellular differentiation and represent
developmental and evolutionary mechanisms both in
germline and somatic cell lines. Only about 2 % of our
genome is composed of protein-coding genes, while the
remaining 98 % , once considered “junk” DNA, codes for
regulatory (hence, epigenetic) elements that control how
genes are expressed in different tissues and across time.
While we already know that epigenetic mechanisms are
at play in cancer development and in regulating
Dr. Fabio Macciardi is Professor of Molecular Psychiatry at
the University of California, Irvine and a well-established
psychiatric geneticist with years of experience in largescale and international collaborations. He has identified
PS1 the first gene for early onset Alzheimer’s Disease
(Hyslop et al, 1992) and several genes (DAOA, DAAO,
AHI1) for schizophrenia, now definitively confirmed. Most
of his work has been on the genetics of complex
disorders (including AD, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorders,
Autism, Depression, Autoimmune Disorders and ALS) and
Ann Kring is Professor and incoming Department Chair of
Psychology at the University of California, Berkley. Her
current research focus is on emotion and
psychopathology, with a specific interest in the emotional
features of schizophrenia, including the negative
symptoms, decision making, and the linkage between
cognition and emotion. In addition, she studies emotion
in healthy people, with a focus on individual differences
in expressive behavior, gender differences, and the
linkages between social context and emotion. Ongoing
studies seek to answer questions, such as whether
anticipating a future emotional event provokes an
immediate emotional response, whether the brain
responds similarly to the anticipation of social versus
monetary reward, how we make decisions in the face of
mismatches
between
behavior
and
emotional
expressions, and how our memory of past emotional
events influences our ability to forecast or predict our
future emotional responses.
Fabio Macciardi and Simona Gaudi
Dept of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University
of California, Irvine (UCI), USA and Department of
Infectious,
Parasitic
and
Immune-Mediated
Diseases, Italian National Institute of Health, Rome,
Italy
26
Pharmacogenomics. At present Dr. Macciardi’s lab
activities are mostly related to study the function and
evolution of genes in complex traits and to nextgeneration sequencing (NGS) of complex traits. His
current major research interests are related to studying
the fine mechanisms of gene regulation by the noncoding DNA. All across his research, development of
genetic epidemiology methods and algorithms remains a
major focus of activity.
Antonio Andreoli
University of Geneva, Geneva
Circuits of wellbeing and emotionally unstable
personalities
Wednesday, October 22, 15:00-15:30
Interest is growing on psychotherapy of patients with
emotionally unstable personalities and this is an area
with significant relevance to development of integrative
mind models and innovative therapy of these disorders.
Specifically, psychotherapy is a putative field to further
investigate the complex relationships of innate emotions,
cognitive-affective schema's and the virtual vicissitudes
of the subjective human sentimental life. The present
clinical report will focus on dreams and treatment
sequences illustrating the exquisite discontinuity of these
independent, heterogeneous circuits showing how their
disharmonious interaction is an essential feature in the
clinical presentation of these patients. Together with a
cornerstone of effective treatment of emotional disorder,
conflicting interaction of emotion, psychological
processes and moral values appears to be an essential
ingredient of the well-being/distress balance rooted in
the unique phylogenetic pathways of our species. Further
study of this cross-way may better integrate recent
progress in neurology, cognitive sciences and
psychoanalysis leading to better understanding
/response to the increasing discontent of contemporary
society and its unsuccessful seek for happiness and
comfort.
Antonio Andreoli was trained in internal medicine,
neurology and psychiatry. Psychoanalyst and former
Professor and Director of psychiatric services at the
Hôpital Cantonal Universitaire de Genève he is actually in
private practice. Psychotherapy research on personality
disorders and acute psychiatric disorders as well as
psychosomatic medicine are from many years his main
research interests.
Coffee Break 15.30 – 16.00
Emanuela Mundo
University of Milano, Italy
Brain plasticity and positive emotions: the role of the
therapeutic experiences across different dia
Wednesday, October 22, 16:00-16:30
The
encounter
between
neuroscience
and
psychologically-oriented interventions have shed light on
the possibility that human experiences (including
different attachment stiles, traumatic experiences, and
psychotherapeutic interventions) may actually change
brain structure and functioning. It is now widely accepted
that the individual is not only what he/she is supposed to
become according to the genetic background but rather
something of more complex and changing throughout
the whole life according to the different life events
he/she may experience, including the “talking cure”.
While the positive effects of cognitive-behavioral
psychotherapy have been confirmed since several years,
more recently literature is focusing on the effects of
psychodynamically-oriented interventions, which imply
transference and counter-transference experiences, on
brain structure and functioning. The role of brain
plasticity enhancement and positive emotions will be
discussed considering different clinical diagnoses,
including personality disorders, major psychiatric
disorders and psychodynamically-oriented therapies
aimed to restore positive emotions. Particularly, the
discussion and the data presentation will be focused on
trauma-related disorders. This choice has been done for
several reasons: traumatic experiences have been defined
as a sort freezing of brain plasticity, having a significant
impact on brain areas and brain circuits that regulate
emotions, affects, and memory (i.e., amygdala and
hippocampus); the therapeutic experience of the “talking
cure” may result in restoring the correct functioning of
the brain areas affected by the traumatic experience(s)
and of their connections with pre-frontal cortex thus,
allowing the “emotional corrective experience” of the
treatment to recover from the “frozen” brain plasticity;
during the therapeutic process both the patient and the
clinician brain circuits for positive and negative emotions
are involved, giving a clear example on how transference,
counter-transference, and setting may modify brain
plasticity in these patients as well as in their therapists.
Emanuela Mundo is psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, assistant
professor for the residency program in clinical
psychology of "Sapienza" University of Rome. Her
lectures and clinical research interests include the
dialogue between neuroscience and clinical psychology,
dynamically-oriented diagnosis and the subjective
experience of major psychiatric disorders.
27
George Koob
Director, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism, Bethesda, MD
Addiction as a window on the neurocircuitry of
emotion
Wednesday, October 22, 16:30-17:00 (Videoconference
from the NIH, Bethesda)
Emotions are “feeling” states and classic physiological
emotive responses that are interpreted based on the
history of the organism and the context. The present
thesis is that drugs of abuse elicit powerful emotions that
can be interwoven conceptually into this framework. Such
emotions range from pronounced euphoria to a
devastating negative emotional state that in the extreme
can create a break with homeostasis that has been
considered key to the etiology and maintenance of the
pathophysiology of addiction. The thesis argued here is
that the brain has specific neurochemical neurocircuitry
that encodes the hedonic extremes of pleasant and
unpleasant emotions that have been identified through
the study of opponent processes in the domain of
addiction. These neurochemical systems need to be
considered in the context of the framework that emotions
involve the specific brain regions now identified as
differentially
interpreting
emotive
physiological
expression.
Dr. Koob's early research interests were directed at the
neurobiology of emotion, with a focus on the theoretical
constructs of reward and stress. He has made
contributions to our understanding of the anatomical
connections of the emotional systems and the
neurochemistry of emotional function. Dr. Koob has
identified afferent and efferent connections of the basal
forebrain in the region of the nucleus accumbens, bed
nucleus of the stria terminalis, and central nucleus of the
amygdala
in
motor
activation,
reinforcement
mechanisms, behavioral responses to stress, drug selfadministration, and the neuroadaptation associated with
drug dependence. Dr. Koob's work with the neurobiology
of stress includes the characterization of behavioral
functions in the central nervous system for
catecholamines, opioid peptides, and corticotropinreleasing factor.
Dr. Koob also is one of the world’s authorities on the
neurobiology of drug addiction. He has contributed to
our understanding of the neurocircuitry associated with
the acute reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse and more
recently on the neuroadaptations of these reward circuits
associated with the transition to dependence. He has
validated key animal models for dependence associated
with drugs of abuse and has begun to explore a key role
of anti-reward systems in the development of
dependence.
This year he became director of the National Institute on
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes
of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
Birgit Derntl
Psychiatry, Universit y of Aachen, Aachen, Germany
Emotional competencies in schizophrenia: brain and
behavior
Wednesday, October 22, 17:00-17:20
20’ talk
Schizophrenia is a devastating neuropsychiatric disorder,
leaving patients to suffer from a range of symptoms
including impairments in emotional competencies. Lately
it has been argued that social cognition deficits in
schizophrenia result in poor social functioning and act as
a mediator between neurocognition and real world
functioning. One of these critical emotional competencies
seems to be empathy, which is a multidimensional
construct, consisting of an affective and cognitive
component. Recently, several studies showed empathic
deficits in schizophrenia patients, which were
accompanied by distinct neural dysfunctions. Compared
to the plethora of studies addressing socio-emotional
processes in schizophrenia, relatively little is known about
empathy in people at risk for psychosis. We used
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and
presented three paradigms measuring the different
empathy components separately to persons clinically at
risk for psychosis, healthy controls and a group of
schizophrenia patients. In comparison to matched
healthy controls and schizophrenia patients, persons
clinically at risk showed fronto-temporo-limbic
hyperactivation during empathy despite unimpaired
behavioral performance. Our results are consistent with
findings from previous fMRI studies addressing social
cognitive aspects in this group, which also reported
neural hyperactivation. Possible mechanisms driving this
greater activation besides compensatory overactivation
might be hypersensitivity to emotional stimuli, elevated
negative affect as well as dysfunctional emotion
regulation. Further investigations will have to clarify the
role of the described neural alterations for the
development and exacerbation of psychotic symptoms.
Particularly specificity and prognostic value of these brain
activation differences in psychosis-prone subjects need to
be examined, thereby gaining information on early
diagnosis and treatment possibilities. Regarding
schizophrenia, a better understanding of the
neuropsychological basis of these impairments will
further help to guide more efficient trainings and
interventions. One of these might be the investigation of
stress reactions and cognitive stress regulation in
schizophrenia patients as subjective, behavioral and
physiological data show that onset of schizophrenia
symptoms, and factors maintaining those symptoms, are
28
associated with stress. Here very recent data from our lab
indicate a deactivation problem in schizophrenia,
meaning patients have problems to turn down activation
in brain regions associated with attention and emotion.
These findings together with the results from at risk
persons and patients regarding empathy indicate that its
mandatory to better characterize the emotional
competencies in order to tailor interventions fitting the
needs of persons at risk and patients.
Luca Passamonti
CNR Istituto di Bioimmagini e Fisiologia Molecolare
(IBFM),
Openess and the dopaminergic neural network
Wednesday, October 22, 17:20-17:35
Short talk
Openness is a "Big Five" personality factor reflecting
absorption in sensory experience, active imagination,
preference for novelty, curiosity, and creativity and has
been thus considered as a key trait for the progress of
humanity. Recently, Openness has also been linked to
mania, although the underlying mechanisms remain
poorly understood. Overall, despite the importance of
Openness for human evolution and for some
psychopathological conditions, little is known about the
brain correlates of this trait. Specifically, it is still unclear
which are the neural mechanisms that make Open people
particularly "receptive" to new and engaging stimuli. In
the present study, we addressed this knowledge gap by
studying the functional connectivity within specific neural
circuits in people with variable levels of Openness. Brain
and behavioural data were gathered from a large and
homogeneous sample of healthy volunteers (n=46) while
executing 3 different functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) experiments (two of them used
respectively pleasant olfactory and visual stimuli while
the third one employed resting-state measures). Using
state-of-the-art analyses, we provided converging
evidence that high Openness scores were linked to
increased functional connectivity within mesocortical
circuits. Of note, the same connectivity pattern was
consistently found across all fMRI experiments (i.e., at
rest, and during both the olfactory and visual task). Taken
together, our consistent results demonstrate that
Openness may depend on enhanced dopaminergic
inputs that gate information within the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex, a key region for encoding, updating,
and maintaining relevant stimuli in working memory. This
may explain why Open people have increased absorption
in sensory experience and elevated "mental permeability"
to engaging stimuli that are critical for organism's
survival. In conclusion, we found that a complex
cognitive-affective style as Openness can be driven by
increased
functional
connectivity
within
basic
dopaminergic neural networks. Future research will
establish whether current results are relevant for
increasing our understanding of the pathophysiology of
mania.
Keynote lecture
Robert Provine
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Laughter
Wednesday, October 22, 18:15-19:15
Our lives are filled with laughter, a socially potent,
species-typical vocalization that has attracted the
attention of philosophers and scientists since antiquity.
Recent progress in understanding laughter has come
from the obvious but neglected approach of observing
laughter in daily life focusing on simple questions--what
is laughter, when do we do it, and what does it mean?
The elemental vocal quantum of laughter provides a
novel and effective simple system approach to problems
about brain and behavior, ranging from the evolution of
speech to the neurological basis of sociality.
The neurologically programmed vocal act of laughter
consists of short, harmonic blasts of "ha" that last about
1/15 second and recur every 1/5 second. Although
laughter is stereotyped, it is not fixed, and can vary with
context and between individuals. Conversation is filled
with laughter, but laughter is not a voluntary decision to
speak "ha"--most people cannot laugh convincingly on
command, and attempts to do so sound unnatural. Given
the involuntary control of laughter, attempts to provide
post hoc rationalizations of the irrational are necessarily
flawed, a reason why we should focus to the behavioral
facts of laughter. Like breathing, laughter "punctuates"
speech, usually occurring during phrase breaks, evidence
that language dominates laughter and involves a
different brain mechanism.
Human laughter is a voiced, parsed exhalation (ha-ha)
that evolved from the unvoiced, panting sound of our
primate ancestors, in which one sound is produced per
inward and outward breath (pant-pant). Laughter is
literally the sound of labored breathing of physical play,
such that the vocalization came to signal the context that
produced it. The contrast between human and
chimpanzee laughter indicates the reason why humans
can talk and chimpanzees cannot; only humans possess
the vocal control necessary to produce a modulated
exhalation. This vocal virtuosity may be result of
bipedality and the associated freeing of the thorax from
its mechanical support function during quadrupedal
locomotion.
The evidence for laughter as a social vocalization is
overwhelming--laughter occurs 30-times more often in
social than solitary situations. The necessary stimulus for
human laughter is another person, not a joke or other
formal attempt at humor. There are huge gender effects
29
in conversational laughter. Males are the most effective
laugh-getters, with both males and females laughing
more at male than female speakers. Laughter is sexy-females laugh most at males they are attracted to, and
males are attracted to females who laugh at their
comments. The acting out of such neurologically
programmed encounters are especially informative
because laughter is an "honest signal" that is under weak
voluntary control. These phenomena of conversational
laughter have been replicated in studies of emoticon
placement in online chat groups, vocal laughter among
the congenitally deaf, and in newspaper personal ads.
Laughter is contagious, whether in conversation or the
laugh-tracks of television situation comedies. Contagious
laughter is evidence for neurologically programmed
social behavior of a sort associated with "mirror neurons,"
but can be studied by anyone, an example of what the
author calls sidewalk neuroscience, the low-tech
approach to problems of brain and behavior based on
observations of everyday behavior.
Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist and Professor of
Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County, uses interdisciplinary methods to study the
development and evolution of the nervous system and
behavior, including human social behavior. Provine’s
research is described in his books, Curious Behavior:
Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond (2012) and
Laughter: A Scientific Investigation (2000), and in many
research reports, magazine articles and book chapters. He
follows the scientific trail wherever it leads, acquiring the
necessary research tools along the way, which have
included electrophysiology, tissue culture, embryonic
microsurgery,
neuroanatomy,
neurochemistry,
psychophysics, and behavioral field studies, and has
involved over 40 species. Provine's recent studies of
laughter, yawning, and other instincts are an extension of
his neuroethological agenda to humans, with the
contagiousness of these acts providing an entry to social
neuroscience and associated problems, from emotion
and empathy to autism. His approach to brain and
behavior based on the description of everyday life is
termed sidewalk neuroscience. It provides a rigorous,
low-tech, simple system approach to complex
mechanisms that requires minimal resources and is
accessible to anyone.
Carlo Calanchini
Psychiatry, Lugano
Capire le emozioni: un percorso tortuoso. Talk in
Italian for the general public
Wednesday, October 22, 20:00-21:00
Le emozioni rivestono un’importanza enorme nella vita
dell’Uomo come in quella degli animali. Esse ne sono
costituenti fondamentali, tanto che – forse – senza
emozioni la vita non ci potrebbe essere, se non in forme
animali molto rudimentali, e vegetali. L’interesse dei
filosofi - che nello studio delle emozioni hanno
preceduto di molto la psicologia, scienza giovane - si è
rivolto quasi esclusivamente alle emozioni umane, per le
loro implicazioni antropologiche ed etiche. Ne sono
scaturite posizioni differenti, che vanno dalla loro
esaltazione (perlomeno di alcune, in certi casi) alla loro
condanna senza appello, passando per la necessità della
loro “moderazione”. Se la psichiatria si è interessata alle
emozioni sin dai suoi inizi poiché tanto il loro “eccesso”
quanto la loro “mancanza” caratterizzano diverse
patologie, le neuroscienze, in anni recenti, sembrano
fornirci nuove e interessanti informazioni al loro riguardo.
Cambieranno qualcosa per la nostra vita?
Dr. med. Lic. Phil I Carlo Calanchini. Luganese, dopo la
maturità classica ha studiato all’Università di Basilea,
prima alla facoltà di scienze naturali, poi in quella di
medicina. Si è diplomato nel 1977 e ha conseguito il
dottorato nel 1982. Ha lavorato come medico assistente
in medicina interna, poi si è specializzato in psichiatria e
psicoterapia alla Clinica e al Policlinico psichiatrici
universitari di Basilea. Dopo un stage al National Institute
of Mental Health a Bethesda, Maryland, ha iniziato
l’attività privata in studio a Lugano e come consulente
all’ospedale malcantonese di Castelrotto dal 1986. Dal
1986 al 1991 ha perfezionato la formazione alla Scuola di
Psicoterapia Psicoanalitica di Milano. Dopo un’intensa
attività quale perito forense, è stato accolto nella Società
svizzera di Psichiatria forense quale membro ordinario e
psichiatra forense certificato nel 2008. Ha portato a
termine studi di filosofia a Friborgo e Berna ottenendo la
licenza con una tesi sulle emozioni nel 2010. Da alcuni
anni è professore incaricato alla Facoltà di Teologia di
Lugano, dove tiene un corso di psicologia generale.
Dinner 19.30 – 21.00
30
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23
Psychology: Chair W. Perrig
David Sander
Psychology, University of Geneva
What is the role of the Amygdala in positive
emotions?
Thursday, October 23, 08:30-09:00
While there is a clear agreement that the amygdala is a
key structure involved in emotion, there are major
debates with respect to its function. Historically, the
amygdala has been considered to be linked to one
emotion in particular: fear. The amygdala even came to
be known as the « fear center » in the brain. However,
various lines of research indicate that the amygdala is
involved in other negative emotions as well as in positive
emotions. The talk will discuss the function of the
amygdala with respect to current theories of emotions,
and will suggest an explanation of why the amygdala is
indeed involved in positive emotions. We will argue that
an appraisal perspective to emotion allows one to test
new ideas concerning the emotional brain. We will
suggest that the key function of the amygdala is to
process stimuli that are relevant for the current concerns
of an individual, suggesting that the amygdala is key for
the processing of all events that are relevant to the
important values, needs and goals of individuals. For
instance, in terms of brain imaging, this suggests that
stimuli appraised as positive (with respect to any valence
dimension) have a similar capacity to activate the
amygdala than stimuli appraised as negative as long as
they are appraised as affectively relevant. Such
mechanism would also explain why positive stimuli do
capture attention, and enjoy memory facilitation effects.
David Sander is a full professor at Department of
Psychology, University of Geneva as well as being a
director of the National Centre of Competence in
Research (NCCR) in Affective Sciences, the Centre
Interfacultaire in Sciences Affectives, and a Director of the
Laboratory for the study of Emotion Elicitation and
Expression (E3 Lab), Department of Psychology, University
of Geneva. He studied mathematics and psychology and
received a PhD in Cognitive Sciences from the University
Louis Lumière (Lyon, France). He is mainly interested in
the mechanisms involved in emotion elicitation, and how
these mechanisms modulate attention, memory, and
decision-making.
Willibald Ruch
Psychology, University of Zürich
Mapping the field of humor: Beyond emotion,
cognition and virtue
Thursday, October 23, 09:00-09:30
Progress in studies on the neural basis of humor is
impaired by the lack of a comprehensive and validated
model of humor that incorporates all the important
dispositional and behavioral/experiential components.
About 70 tests of the sense of humor have been
proposed in the past decade (Ruch, 2007). A lexical study
revealed that there are four key terms in the field of the
comic (i.e., humor, wit, mock/ridicule, fun). Studying the
etymology of the key terms humor shows that the
meaning of humor underwent changes and was referring
to different things such as mood, talent, temperament,
virtue, attitude, world-view or ability. The presentation
will map the existing humor conceptualizations in a
broader framework derived from a series of studies
aimed at generating a broader model of humor. This
included, among others, the study of everyday humorous
conduct but also the implementation of comic styles
derived from literary studies in psychological instruments.
It seems that a hierarchical model, with four domains,
seems to fit the data best. Each domain contains a cluster
of interrelated concepts and behavioral indicators. The
model and an assessment instrument will be presented
that might serve as a map for brain studies of humor.
Willibald Ruch, MD, is a full professor and Head of the
Section of Personality and Assessment at the University
of Zurich. He studied in the Conservatory of Klagenfurt
(specialist classical guitar), at the Karl-Franzens-University
of Graz (Institute of Psychology, Director: Prof. Dr. Erich
Mittenecker) and Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA. In
the 1980 he got the PhD (Dr. phil.) at the Science Faculty
of the University of Graz, Austria. As researcher, he is
interested in emotions (humor, laughter, joy) and he is an
editor and co-editor of several books and journals.
Paul Pauli
University of Würzburg, Würzburg
The pleasure of relief
Thursday, October 23, 09:30-10:00
Most people assume that pleasure is triggered by positive
events only. However, any positive and any negative
event has a beginning and an end. We examined whether
the termination of an aversive event triggers pleasure
too, as predicted by the opponent process theory. In this
context, I will stress from a basic-research perspective
that there are actually two aspects about a negative event
that are worth remembering: What made it happen, and
what made it cease. I will review findings showing that
31
both aspects induce distinct and oppositely valenced
memories: Specifically, our studies indicate that stimuli
experienced after an electric shock acquire positive
valence because of their association with the relieving
cessation of pain. Whether this is pleasure will be
discussed on the basis of verbal, behavioural and
neuronal data. Finally, consequences of relief-learning for
the threat-imminence model of defensive behaviour as
well as perspectives for applied psychology in the context
of trauma, panic and non-suicidal self-injury will be
outlined.
Paul Pauli is since 2001 a full professor of Biological
Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the
Department of Psychology at the University of Würzburg,
Germany. In 1991 he received the PhD in Psychology, and
in 1998 he finished his Habilitation, both at the University
of Tübingen, Germany.
His research is focused on emotions and emotional
disorders, e.g. on the contributions of cognitive
distortions to the development and / or maintenance of
emotional disorder or the impact of emotions on pain
perception. In addition, he is interested in conditioning
processes, especially context conditioning, and how they
contribute to fear and anxiety.
Related research examined the process of relief, i.e. the
termination of an aversive event, and its relation to the
feeling of pleasure. He also examines the cognitive,
motivational, and physiological effects of stimuli (cues)
associated with drug intake (nicotine).
Coffee Break 10.00-10.30
Rainer Schwarting
Psychology, University of Marburg, Marburg
Rat 50-kHz vocalizations in affective and social
neuroscience
Thursday, October 23, 10:30-11:00
Currently, rodent ultrasonic vocalizations receive
substantial attention in basic and clinically-oriented
neuroscientific research, since vocalizations seem to
provide a rather unique avenue to study the putative
affective state of a laboratory rodent which might not be
accessible by conventional behavioral means. In rats,
distinct classes of ultrasonic calls can be defined which
vary dependent on developmental age, situational
factors, and experience.
These classes are comprised of complex affective and
communicative signals uttered in different social and
non-social situations. Out of these, high-frequency calls,
i.e. signals ranging around 50-kHz, are normally emitted
during or in expectation of naturalistic rewarding
situations such as food, mating, and rough-and-tumble
play. Also, they can be triggered by non-naturalistic
stimuli such as electrical stimulation of the mesolimbic
dopamine system, or psycho-stimulant drugs like damphetamine.
Here, recent evidence will be presented showing how 50kHz calls can be used to study both sender and receiver,
for example by using playback techniques, and that not
only 50-kHz call production but also responding to such
calls is related to dopamine function in the nucleus
accumbens.
Rainer Schwarting is a full professor of experimental and
biological psychology at the faculty of psychology,
Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany. His scientific
interests range from basal ganglia to limbic system
functions in procedural learning, emotion, and
communication, which his research group studies in rats
and mice.
Barbara Studer
Psychology, University of Bern, Bern
Emotional stability promotes intelligence
Thursday, October 23, 11:00-11:15
Short talk
Emotional stability promotes intelligence In the research
field of the relationship between intelligence and
personality factors, one of the most consistent findings is
that intelligence is positively correlated with emotional
stability. However, few studies have considered this
relationship in children, and very few have differentiated
between types of intelligence as well as underlying
differences in working memory capacity when explaining
the relationship between intelligence scores and
emotional stability. In this study, the level of emotional
stability and performance in a proxy for fluid and
crystallized intelligence as well as in two working memory
tasks was assessed in a sample of 397 primary school
children. Results reveal that emotional stability is
significantly positively related to vocabulary (crystallized
intelligence), moderated by high working memory
performance, but unrelated to abstract reasoning (fluid
intelligence). This was interpreted as indicating that the
positive relationship between intelligence and emotional
stability is mainly due to learning advantages starting in
early age, due to high working memory performance,
rather than to higher general intelligence. This bears the
important implication that emotionally labile children
(high level of neuroticism) should be supported to
regulate their negative emotions, intrusive thoughts and
anxiety as early as possible to eliminate progressive
learning disadvantages. One approach to do so is by
specific working memory training targeting the
improvement of emotional regulation skills.
32
Eva Pool
Campus Biotech, University of Geneva-CISA, Geneva
Attention orientation to positive rewarding stimuli
Thursday, October 23, 11:15-11:30
Short talk
Evidence consistently demonstrates our attention to
orient automatically (i.e. attentional bias) toward negative
threatening stimuli. However, does the same
phenomenon occur for positive rewarding stimuli? The
present
meta-analysis
systematically
compared
attentional bias for positive compared with neutral
stimuli across 100 studies (N = 5,319 healthy participants)
that used different types of measures, paradigms and
positive stimuli. Factors were tested that, as postulated by
the theoretical models of emotion, might modulate this
bias. Overall, results showed a significant, albeit modest
(Hedges’ g = .305), attentional bias for positive as
compared with neutral stimuli. Moderator analyses
revealed that this bias was larger for emotional stimuli
that are relevant to shared general source concerns (e.g.,
reproduction, offspring caretaking) or individual-specific
surface concerns (e.g., hunger) of the participants
compared with other positive stimuli that were less
relevant to the participants’ concerns. Moreover, the
moderator analyses showed that attentional bias for
positive stimuli was larger in paradigms that measure
early, rather than late, attentional processing, suggesting
that attentional bias for positive stimuli is rapid and
involuntary. These findings demonstrate that, like
negative threating stimuli, positive rewarding stimuli are
also systematically capable of biasing attention very
rapidly and at an early stage of information processing.
This supports the idea that attentional bias for emotional
stimuli is not driven by threat, but rather by a mechanism
that is common to negative threats and positive rewards,
a key component of which is the importance of the
stimulus for the concerns of the observer.
Christian Waugh
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, CT, USA
Savoring positive emotions
Thursday, October 23, 11:30-11:45
Short talk
Positive emotions are often fleeting; therefore, to obtain
the most benefit from them, people will often savor
positive emotions - actively maintaining them after the
eliciting stimulus has passed. Although there are mental
and physical health benefits to savoring positive
emotional states, it is not clear how people do this and
which brain regions are responsible. We also do not
know whether the same psychological and neural
mechanisms are involved in maintaining both positive
and negative emotional states. In an fMRI study, we
examined whether people maintain emotional states
‘actively,’ with explicit cognitive elaboration of the
emotional state, and/or ‘passively’, by extending the
naturally generated emotional state. Twenty-four
participants completed an emotion maintenance task in
which they either maintained the emotional intensity
from the first picture of a pair to compare to that of the
second picture (‘maintain’ condition), or only rated their
emotional response to the second picture (‘non-maintain’
condition). After the task, participants viewed the pictures
again and rated them with respect to emotional intensity
and self-relevance. One pattern of findings suggests that
people can ‘actively’ maintain both positive and negative
emotional states. When maintaining vs. not maintaining
emotion, participants exhibited increased height and
width of activation in the dorsal medial frontal cortex
(MFC) and lateral prefrontal cortex, regions associated
with explicit emotion generation and manipulation of
contents in working memory, respectively. In addition,
participants recalled the maintained emotional images as
more emotionally intense than they did the nonmaintained images, suggesting that they elaborated on
the emotional content in these images when maintaining
their emotional states. Another pattern of findings
emerged, however, to suggest that participants ‘passively’
maintain their positive emotional states more effectively
than they do their negative emotional states. When
maintaining (vs. not maintaining) positive emotional
states, participants exhibited greater duration of activity
in the rostral MFC, a region associated with implicit
emotion generation. They exhibited decreased activity in
this region, however, when maintaining (vs. not
maintaining) negative emotional states. Finally,
behavioral evidence suggests that there was less decay of
the emotional state and more self-relevant processing
when people were maintaining positive emotional states
than when they were maintaining negative emotional
states. This evidence that savoring positive emotions
involves both active cognitive maintenance processes
and more passive emotion generation processes is critical
in increasing our understanding of individual differences
in positive emotion savoring and of how we might
leverage savoring to improve mental and physical health.
Mario De Caro
Institute of Philosophy, University of Rome 3 / Tufts
University Boston, Boston
The philosophy of emotions
Thursday, October 23, 11:45-12:15
The philosophical tradition has very often conceived the
emotions, broadly construed, as a burden that we have to
take with us, as an obstacle to the full development of
rationality and morality (which in themselves could
generate human flourishing). Alternatively, the emotions
have been interpreted as the authentic source of agency,
thought, morality, and personal identity.
33
Even though both these views have been proved
inadequate because of their unilaterality, surprisingly
they still inspire – if often tacitly – many philosophical
and scientific conceptions.
A different approach, however, is possible and looks
much more promising. This approach accurately
distinguishes
different
kinds
of
emotions;
is
programmatically interdisciplinary; and aims at an
integrated understanding of emotions and rationality. As
an example of the potentialities of this articulate,
multidisciplinary, and integrated approach I will discuss
the role that emotions can be seen to play in our moral
life by looking, from a philosophical point of view, at
some recent empirical data that come from cognitive
science.
Mario De Caro teaches Moral Philosophy at Roma Tre
University and since 2000 has also been teaching at Tufts
University, where he is a regular Visiting Professor. He has
been a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University and a
Visiting Scholar for two years at MIT. He is the vicepresident of the Consulta Nazionale di Filosofia and a
past president of the Italian Society for Analytic
Philosophy. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of the
American Philosophical Association, forthcoming for
Cambridge University Press. Besides authoring articles in
five languages and three books in Italian, he has edited
volumes for Harvard University Press, Columbia
University Press, Springer and Kluwer. He has been
invited to give talks in more than 100 academic
institutions, including Oxford, Princeton, Harvard, Paris IV
- Sorbonne, Institute Jean Nicod (École Normale
Supérieure, Paris), Bonn, and Genève.
He is interested in action theory, moral philosophy,
neuroethics, metaphysics, metaphilosophy, philosophy of
film, and history of early modern thought.
Lunch 12.45 – 13.45
34
POSTERS
Alessandro Bilella
University of Fribourg Dept. Medicine, Fribourg
The PV1-Foxb1-nucleus projects to the PAG
A. Bilella, G. Alvarez-Bolado, M. R. Celio
The PV1-Foxb1-nucleus projects to the PAG The PV1nucleus is a cord-like structure comprised of
parvalbumin-positive neurons lodged within the
ventrolateral hypothalamus. Independently, a stream of
Foxb1-expressing neurons migrating to the ventrolateral
hypothalamus was also described. We have found that
parvalbumin-positive cells and Foxb1-expressing neurons
intermingle together in the PV1-nucleus which, on the
base of this observation, has recently been redesigned as
the PV1-Foxb1-nucleus. We mapped the efferent
connections of the PV1-Foxb1-nucleus using Credependent viral constructs stereotactically injected in
Foxb1-Cre mice and parvalbumin/Foxb1-Cre mice. The
PV1-Foxb1-nucleus projects to the periaqueductal gray
(PAG) and hindbrain, caudally and, to a lesser extent, in
the prefrontal cortex rostrally. The caudal projection
divides in two different bundles and reaches the
dorsolateral and ventrolateral portion of the PAG. Other
terminals are found in the dorsolateral tegmental nucleus
(LDTg). Continuing to proceed in the distal direction, the
projections contact the raphe nucleus (RN), the
dorsomedial tegmental area (DMTg), the locus coeruleus
(LC). A small group of axons terminates in the
gigantocellular nucleus (Gi), in the midbrain. The
connections between the lateral hypothalamic area and
the ventrolateral PAG could modulate pain circuits and
those with the LDTg could influence REM-sleep. These
tracing results, pave the way for further functional
investigation to understand the functions of the PV1Foxb1-nucleus.
Philip Blue
Peking University, Beijing
Kissing up but not kissing down
How social status affects altruistic punishment The
endowment of social status is one of the most pervasive
and useful social tools for organizing groups and
fostering cooperation. Yet social status is dynamic and
ever-changing and its effects are far from being
understood. In order to better understand how hierarchy
affects fairness processing, participants acted as receivers
in the Ultimatum Game (UG), with math contests
interleaved between UG blocks to manipulate social
status (high, medium, low). As expected, participants
accepted more fair than unfair offers and rejected unfair
offers more when endowed with high status than with
low status. When awarded high status, unfair offers led to
increased activity in the left hippocampus, left orbital
frontal cortex (lOFC), and caudate when compared with
low status endowment. Surprisingly, we found that
during low status rounds, participants showed no neural
distinction between fair and unfair offers, whereas unfair
offers during high status led to increased activity in the
dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), precuneus, and
occipital/parietal cortex. These results suggest that low
status may have blunted fairness processing, while high
status increased mentalizing in response to unfair offers,
which is in line with participants’ increase in altruistic
punishment (rejection) during high status rounds. Yet, the
effects of status on fairness processing did not affect all
participants equally: the greater the connectivity between
the hippocampus and the OFC, the less an individual was
affected by status during offer appraisal, which suggests
the need to engage higher-order cognitive resources to
overcome the additional sting of an unfair offer when in
high status. Taken as a whole, these findings provide
support for the modulation of social status on fairness
processing. In addition, the decrease in altruistic
punishment and the failure to neurally encode fairness
during low status blocks suggests that intervention to
help low status individuals flourish may require a
conscious awareness of the effects of social hierarchy on
decision-making. By bringing these effects into
awareness, we may not only lead to increased flourishing
in low status populations, but would also lead to
increased prosocial behavior (e.g., altruistic punishment)
and a greater overall utility of the group as a whole.
Ester Desfilis
Fac. Medicina, IRB Lleida, Lleida, Spain
Development of medial extended amygdala neurons
involved in distinct social-related neural pathways
Ester Desfilis*, Alba Vicario, Antonio Abellán, Beatriz
Robles-Castro, and Loreta Medina Fac. Medicine,
IRBLleida, University of Lleida
The extended amygdala is involved in different social
behaviors including affiliation as well as aggression or
defense. In the rat, two different different neuron
subpopulations of the medial amygdala and the medial
bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTM) appear to
mediate odor-induced reproductive or aggressive
behavior, the first being GABAergic and expressing the
transcription factor Lhx6, and the second being
glutamatergic (Choi et al., 2005). Lhx6 neurons are
densely concentrated in the posterodorsal subdivision of
the medial amygdala and in the principal or
posteromedial subdivision of the BSTM, two subnuclei
that are extensively interconnected and project to the
same hypothalamic targets related to reproduction. Our
35
group is using an evolutionary developmental approach
for studying the amygdala, combining expression of
region-specific transcription factors, phenotypic markers
and migration assays in mouse and sauropsids, which is
greatly helping to understand the origin of the neuron
subtypes involved in different functional pathways. Our
developmental data indicate that neurons of the medial
amygdala and BSTM originate in at least five different
progenitor domains, which produce either GABAergic or
glutamatergic cells. For example, Lhx6 GABAergic
neurons of the medial amygdala/BSTM originate in a
subdomain of the pallidal progenitor division. Neurons
with different origin showed a trend to be segregated in
the BSTM of mouse and chicken, and in the posterior part
of the medial amygdala of mouse. Additionally, one of
the progenitor domains that produces neurons for the
medial extended amygdala is the same division that
produces the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus,
which suggests that this may be the origin of the neurons
expressing vasopressin (AVP)/vasotocin (AVT) or oxytocin
found mainly or exclusively in the BSTM in different
amniotes. These neurons are sexually dimorphic, and
have been involved in affiliative behavior, including pairbonding, maternal care, and social recognition. Thus, our
data are useful for understanding the origin of the neural
pathways underlying different social-related behaviors.
Supported by a grant from the Spanish MINECO
(BFU2012-33029).
at the center that was surrounded by letters. The
emotional distractors were matched on their level of
arousal, and to generalise across different material and
content we used either faces scenes chosen from IAPS
(erotic or mutilated bodies, Experiment 1) (fearful or
happy, Experiment 2) or neutral faces that were
associated with a negative or positive valence (monetary
gain, or loss) in a prior learning phase. Participants were
required to search the letter string for a target letter
(either X or N) and made a speeded response using the
numerical keypad. The current set of experiments
consistently demonstrated that interference effect was
reduced under high-load condition compared to lowload condition. However, this load modulation was
specific to negatively valenced distractor but not
positively valenced distractors. These results were
observed constantly to different categories of stimuli:
IAPS pictures, emotional faces, value-learned faces. It
clearly demonstrates that emotional content of the
stimulus does matter for attentional capture, which
suggests that both stimulus content and the level of
attention (low vs high) need to be taken into account by
theories of attention.
Rashmi Gupta
Dispositional gratitude and forgiveness as mediators
Genetic studies have shown that a large portion of
individual differences in subjective wellbeing can be
attributed to genetic variations, and psychological studies
have demonstrated that such individual differences can
also be predicted by individuals’ positive personalities,
such as gratitude and forgiveness. However, little is
known about how genes interact with personalities to
affect subjective wellbeing. Inspired by the link between
negative bias to emotional stimuli and catechol-Omethyltransferase (COMT) gene, which is crucial for the
degradations of dopamine and norepinephrine, this study
investigated to what extent the functional COMT
Val158Met polymorphism modulates subjective wellbeing
and to what extent the dispositional gratitude and
forgiveness mediates the relationship between the
polymorphism and subjective wellbeing. Four hundred
and forty-five unrelated Chinese Han senior students
(75% female, mean age = 24.3±1.5 years) completed a
battery of questionnaires. Cognitive, affective, and
psychosocial happiness were measured with the
Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Scale of Positive and
Negative Experience, and the Flourishing Scale,
respectively. These three scale scores were standardized
and added together to obtain a single aggregate index of
subjective wellbeing. Depression was measured with the
Zung Self-rating Depression Scale. Dispositional gratitude
University of Geneva, Geneva
Distracted by pleasure? Positive versus negative
emotional capture across different stimuli and
perceptual load
Recent studies have claimed that processing of negative
emotional information is modulated by attentional
demand in the task. It should be noted that this finding is
based on studies that compared negative stimuli (eg.
fearful faces) with neutral. Hence, difference in results
could be attributed to the difference in the arousal level
between negative and neutral stimuli. It is essential to
compare negative information with positive information
that is matched on arousal level in order to comment on
valence specific interaction with attention. The present
study was an attempt in this direction. In a series of
experiments we requested participants to perform a letter
search task in which we varied the level of perceptual
load to manipulate attention engagement in the task.
During task performance participants were presented
with a stimulus display. The stimulus display consisted of
a distractor at the centre of the screen, surrounded by a
letter string. One target letter (X or N) and five non-target
letters (‘O’ in the low-load and H’, ‘K’, ‘W’, ‘M’, ‘Z’ on the
high-load) were presented in a random order in each
trial. Emotional distractors of negative or positive valence
Jinting Liu
Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing
COMT
Val158Met
polymorphism
modulates
subjective wellbeing
36
and forgiveness were measured with the Gratitude,
Resentment and Appreciation Test and the Heartland
Forgiveness Scale, respectively. Hair follicle cells were
collected for genotyping. The distribution of genotypes
(Met/Met = 29, Val/Met = 147, Val/Val = 269) showed no
deviation from Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (χ2 = 2.078,
p = .149). The numbers of Met alleles for Met/Met,
Val/Met, and Val/Val are 2, 1, and 0, respectively. Results
of regression analysis showed that individuals with
smaller number of Met alleles reported greater
happiness, less depressive symptoms, and greater
tendencies in gratitude and forgiveness. These findings is
in line with previous studies showing the increased
negative bias of Met alleles in emotion processing. As
previous studies have evideced the causal links of
gratitude and forgiveness to happiness and depressive
symptoms, we conducted mediation analysis and found
that both dispositional gratitude and forgiveness
significantly mediated a substantial portion of the
genotype effects on happiness and depressive symptoms.
These findings highlight the contribution of COMT
Val158Met polymorphism to subjective wellbeing and
positive personalities. Moreover, this study evidences the
mediating roles of positive personalities in the
relationship between gene and subjective wellbeing and
provides a neurocognitive explanation for subjective
wellbeing.
Emilie Meaux
LabNIC, Campus BIOTECH, Geneva
Facing mixed emotions: Brain representation of
analytic and holistic perception of facial expression
Although the ability to accurately decode and interpret
facial emotions is of primary importance for humans to
socially interact, it is still debated how we analyze faces
to determine their expression. Several findings suggest
that faces recognition relies not on the encoding of
individual features (i.e. analytic processing), but on the
integration of those features into a global whole (i.e.
holistic processing). However, there is no consensus
about this when emotions are processed from faces and
no neuroimaging study has specifically mapped these
neurocognitive mechanisms yet. Happy and angry
composite expressions were created in which the top and
bottom face halves formed either an incongruent
composite (e.g., angry top + happy bottom) or congruent
expression (e.g., happy top + happy bottom). To assess
pure analytic processing, isolated happy and anger
features were also presented. Twenty-six healthy
volunteers (13 females) reported the expression in the
target top or bottom half of the face while their brain
activity was scanned using fMRI. Behavioral results
indicated that cognitive mechanisms for happy and anger
expression recognition are neither strictly holistic nor
analytic. Both routes appeared involved and the
respective role of analytic and holistic information varied
with the emotion type. Moreover, diagnostic features of
happy and anger expressions are differentially distributed
across the face. Our fMRI results comparing analytic or
incongruent expression versus congruent expressions
revealed distributed patterns of brain activity
differentiating these conditions. Bilateral fusiform gyrus
and amygdala showed greater activity during the
congruent expression processing (i.e. pure holistic
representation), along with parietal areas and prefrontal
association cortex, whereas middle temporal gyrus
(midTG), STS and orbitofrontal activity increased for
incongruent expression processing (i.e. featural
integration). On the other hand, isolated features (i.e.
pure analytic processing) evoked stronger activation in
low level visual regions compared to congruent
expressions, accompanied with midTG and striatum.
These effects were not related to differences in task
performance, except for activity in right lingual gyrus and
inferior frontal gyrus where a partial overlap was
observed. These results indicate that the processing of
emotional facial features, their integration in a whole and
holistic perception are mediated by partially separate
networks, demonstrating that emotion recognition
processes may operate on an analytic to holistic
continuum.
Loreta Medina
Fac. Medicina, IRB Lleida, Lleida, Spain
Developmental
and
molecular
dissection
of
amygdalar neurons involved in distinct emotionrelated neural pathways
Loreta Medina*, Alba Vicario, Antonio Abellán, Beatriz
Robles-Castro, and Ester Desfilis Fac. Medicine, IRBLleida,
University of Lleida
The amygdala plays a critical role in control and/or
modulation of emotions, motivation, and social behavior,
being involved in many multifaceted and, at times,
contradictory functions (for example, reward versus
aversion, or anxiolysis versus anxiogenesis). In recent
years, our group is using an evolutionary developmental
approach for studying the amygdala, combining
expression of region-specific transcription factors,
phenotypic markers and migration assays in mouse and
chicken, which is greatly helping to understand the origin
of the neuron subtypes involved in different functional
pathways. Here we present some of the results obtained
using such approach, focussing in the extended
amygdala, which includes the bed nucleus of the stria
terminalis (BST). The lateral BST, implicated in modulation
of fear/anxiety together with the central amygdala, has
also been involved in motivation by way of its
descending projections to the ventral tegmental area
(VTA). The BST neurons projecting to the VTA are mostly
37
GABAergic and their activation produce reward and
anxiolysis (Jennings et al., 2013). However, a minor
subpopulation is glutamatergic and its activation
produces the opposite effect: aversion and anxiogenesis
(Jennings et al., 2013). One third of the GABAergic
neurons projecting to the VTA contain enkephalin (ENK)
(Kudo et al., 2014), but the BSTL contains many subtypes
of
GABAergic
neurons,
coexpressing
different
neuropeptides. Our developmental data indicate that
neurons of the BSTL originate from at least six different
progenitor domains, which helps to explain its
extraordinary complexity in terms of neuron subtypes. In
particular, the glutamatergic neurons of this nucleus
appear to originate in the prethalamic eminence, outside
the telencephalon. In contrast, the GABAergic neurons
originate in five distinct subpallial domains. Our data in
chicken also reveal that the ENK neurons of BSTL can
originate in at least three different subdivisions: striatal,
pallidal and preoptic. This raises questions on the
presence of the same three subtypes in mouse, and the
specific connections and function of each newly
identified ENK neuron subtype. Thus, our data are useful
for understanding the origin of the neural pathways
underlying opposing emotion-related behaviors, opening
new venues for better-focused anatomical and functional
studies, and for trying to understand inter-species
differences in behavior. Supported by a grant from the
Spanish MINECO (BFU2012-33029).
Carmen Morawetz
Department of Education and Psychology, Freie
Universität, Berlin
Changes in effective connectivity between dorsal and
ventral prefrontal regions moderate emotion
regulation
Carmen Morawetz, Stefan Bode, Juergen Baudewig,
Evgeniya Kirilina, Hauke R. Heekeren
Introduction Reappraisal, the cognitive reevaluation of a
potentially emotionally arousing event, has been
proposed to be based upon top-down appraisal systems
within the prefrontal cortex. It still remains unclear, how
different prefrontal regions interact to control and
regulate emotional responses. We used functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and dynamic causal
modeling (DCM) to characterize the effective connectivity
between the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), dorsolateral PFC
(DLPFC), and other reappraisal-related regions during
emotion regulation (ER). Methods 23 right-handed
subjects (mean age=22.95±3.57 years) performed specific
reappraisal strategies (Increase, Decrease) while viewing
60 highly arousing extreme sports film clips and 42
neutral film clips in the scanner (3T, Siemens). The
experimental design involved four different conditions:
‘Increase’ (engage with the depicted situation), ‘Decrease’
(distance from it), ‘Look Neutral’ and ‘Look Sports’ (no
reappraisal). We used an event-related design (2s
instruction, 8s picture/film clip, 4s “How do you feel?”
rating, 4-8s fixation). Based on previous findings, we used
5 ROIs (IFG, DLPFC, SMA, SMG, V1) as sources and
systematically constructed a model space, divided into
two model families with two different central nodes
(family1: DLPFC; family2: IFG). All competing models
within one family had the same architecture with six
endogenous connections that modeled the forward and
backward connections between regions. Within each of
the two families the modulatory effects of ER were
modeled. Results The DCM results revealed that family1,
with DLPFC as central node, represented the best
explanation of the data with a total exceedance
probability of 0.997. Within family1, the winning model
had an exceedance probability of 0.557. The analysis of
the intrinsic connection strength of the winning model
showed that most endogenous connectivity parameters
were significant. One intrinsic connection (IFG to DLPFC)
was negative. The analysis of the modulatory effects of ER
revealed significant modulations of connectivity from the
DLPFC to the IFG and from the IFG to the DLPFC.
Reappraisal reduced the effective connectivity between
the DLPFC and IFG in both directions. Conclusion The
results of our DCM analyses support the hypothesis that
ER is mediated by bidirectional changes of connection
strength between the IFG and DLPFC. The findings
indicate a feedback mechanism between the DLPFC and
IFG during ER, in which the selection process of a
reappraisal, most likely involving the IFG, modulates the
connectivity between IFG and DLPFC.
Edita Navratilova
Department of Pharmacology, University of Arizona,
Tucson AZ, USA
Brain circuits supporting reward from pain relief
Edita Navratilova, Diana Meske, Jennifer Yanhua Xie,
Chaoling Qu, Alec Okun, Janice Oyarzo, Xu Yue, Dong Lu,
Naomi Goshima, and Frank Porreca Department of
Pharmacology, Arizona Health Sciences Center, University
of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85724
Pain is multidimensional with sensory and affective
(aversive) components. The affective and emotional
aspects of pain are important to patients. Relief of pain
aversiveness produces a positive hedonic state that is
associated with activation of mesolimbic reward
pathways in both animals and humans. The brain circuits
mediating the emotional qualities of pain, and its relief,
are not well understood. We have demonstrated in rat
pain models that pain-induced motivational drive to seek
relief can be reliably demonstrated behaviorally with
place conditioning (conditioned place preference, CPP).
Thus, pairing a context with a treatment that relieves pain
aversiveness produces negative reinforcement (i.e., CPP)
38
as well as increased dopamine (DA) release in the nucleus
accumbens (NAc). In the absence of pain, the same
treatments do not produce CPP or NAc DA release
confirming that the rewarding effects are due to relief of
an aversive pain state and not due to intrinsically
rewarding properties of these treatments. Human
neuroimaging studies in subjects demonstrated that the
anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is one of the key brain
regions encoding pain aversiveness. The ACC expresses
high amounts of opioid receptors and studies in humans
suggest that opioid neurotransmission in this cortical
area is associated with reduction in pain aversiveness.
Based on these findings we hypothesized that reward
from relief of pain requires endogenous opioid signaling
in the ACC and subsequent downstream activation of the
mesolimbic dopamine reward circuits. We tested our
hypothesis in rat models of acute post-surgical
(nociceptive) and chronic neuropathic pain using CPP to
analyze behavioral effects and in vivo microdialysis of
NAc DA. Relief from nociceptive or neuropathic pain
produced CPP and release of NAc dopamine. Inhibition
of opioid signaling in the ACC by microinjection of an
opioid receptor antagonist naloxone blocked both pain
relief-mediated CPP and NAc dopamine release.
Conversely, microinjection of an opioid receptor agonist
morphine in the ACC produced CPP and NAc dopamine
release selectively in injured rats. The data suggest that
activation of the dopamine brain reward circuits
following relief of pain may be mediated selectively by
release of endogenous opioids in the ACC. This approach
may therefore allow preclinical investigation of neural
mechanisms whereby relief of pain promotes positive
emotions.
Zaneta Navratilova
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour,
Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Optogenetic stimulation of the basolateral amygdala
Noradrenergic projections from the basolateral amygdala
(BLA) contact many brain regions, including neocortex,
hippocampus, and the striatum, and modulate memory
processes
in
those
networks.
Pharmacological
manipulation of the activity of the BLA in the time period
immediately after learning has been shown to impact
several different types of memory. Optogenetic
manipulation provides an opportunity for specifically
timed manipulation of neural activity, which would allow
dissection of the specific proceses that underlie the
amygdala’s role in memory enhancement. To this end, we
injected channelrhodopsin constructs bilaterally in rats’
BLA, and implanted optical fibers for stimulation, with
attached tetrodes for electrical recording. In order to
determine the optimal stimulation parameters, we
stimulated the BLA in one hemisphere, while recording
from tetrodes in both hemispheres. Previous studies have
stimulated at 20Hz or 40Hz. We observed a response in
the local field potential at both of these frequencies, and
observed that 20Hz induced a higher firing rate response
in the recorded neurons. Further, we stimulated at lower
frequencies, hypothesizing that since the natural
oscillation frequency in the amygdala is in the theta (510Hz) range, this would be the best stimulation
frequency to induce coherence across the two
hemispheres.
Neuhaus / Bagutti
Unit of Neurology, University and Hospital of Fribourg,
Fribourg, CH
Evaluation of Social Cognition in clinical setting
Background: Social cognition and Theory of Mind (ToM),
i.e the ability to make inferences about other people’s
state of mind and to use them to predict their behaviour,
can be impaired in neurological diseases. Although
extensive batteries have been developed in order to
evaluate ToM in different pathologies, few tests are
currently available in German allowing clinicians to
efficiently assess ToM deficits in daily practice. The
GeSoCS (Geneva social cognition scale) is a test package
in French with proven ability to distinguish neurological
patients with ToM deficits from controls. Evaluation time
is about 30 minutes. Objectives: First, to assess the quality
of the interlanguage and intertester reliability by
comparing two control populations (French and German)
and groups evaluated by different testers. Second, to
demonstrate that this scale can distinguish multiple
sclerosis (MS) patients from controls and that GeSoCS
performances correlate with scores at a behavioural
questionnaire. Methods: One team member translated
the GeSoCS from French to German. The translation was
validated by back-translation to French by another
member and comparison with the original by two judges.
The results obtained in different studies by healthy
controls in French (n=52) and German (n=34) were
compared as well as the results obtained by different
testers in order to detect a possible tester bias. For the
clinical application, 39 patients from Basel University
Hospital with MS were tested and compared to 21 sex,
age and formation matched healthy controls. The
Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX), a behavioural
questionnaire, was filled by a relative. Results: There was
no difference in the performances between French and
German patients in global scores (p= 0.37) and all sub
scores (Social Cognition, Looks, ToM in pictures, Absurd
stories, Induction of temporal laws) except for a mild
difference in the subtest “Inferences” (p= 0.03). The
second part of the study showed that MS patients
performed significantly worse than controls in the total
GeSoCS score, more precisely in three different tasks
(«Social Cognition», «Reading the Mind in the Eyes»,
«Cartoons»). Moreover, a low GeSoCS score correlates
39
with a high DEX score. Conclusions: The GeSoCS has a
good interrater stability and has similar norms in French
and German, except for a mild difference in the subtest
“Inferences”. These differences found between MS
patients and controls converge with previous evidence
for ToM deficits in MS. GeSoCS is a valid scale, which
could be used to assess social cognition deficits in MS
patients.
neuropil is rich in astrocytic processes and numerous
unmyelinated axons. The morphological phenotype of
the VENs may vary in both human and macaque brains,
dark (degenerated) neurons, which are especially
abundant in human postmortem tissue, reflect a high
vulnerability of these neurons. Finally, the ultrastructural
similarities of human and macaque VENs in the ACC and
AIC confirm that the macaque is a suitable model for
studying the hitherto mysterious function of these unique
neurons.
E. Petrasch-Parwez/M. Von Duering
Department of Neuroanatomy and Molecular Brain
Research, RUB, Bochum
Von Economo neurons in human and macaque brain –
an electron microscopic study.
Von Economo neurons (VENs) are large bipolar spindleshaped neurons mainly localized in layer V of the anterior
insular (AIC) and anterior cingulate (ACC) cortex, both of
which brain areas closely associated with social cognition,
self-awareness and empathy. The VENs are most
numerous in human brains, but are also described in an
increasing number of mammals, though much less
abundant. They have been extensively studied in the last
two decades, as they are obviously related to various
neuropsychiatric diseases including autism, schizophrenia
and bipolar disorders. Their real function is still obscure.
Fine structural analyses are lacking. To elucidate the
morphology of these particular neurons further, we
analyzed the subcellular composition by semi- and
ultrathin section series of the ACC and AIC of human and
rhesus monkey brains. All human and macaque VENs are
extraordinary rich in free ribosomes dispersed in the
somata and extending into the two broad smooth
proximal dendrites. The somata show multivesicular
bodies, regular Golgi apparatus and abundant
mitochondria. Of note are abundant elongated profiles of
smooth endoplasmic reticulum closely associated to the
cytoplasmic membrane and the rough endoplasmic
reticulum indicating a complex local protein machinery.
Cilia emerging from the somata are frequently observed
in the macaque. The elongated euchromatic nuclei are
often deeply indented. The dendrites exhibit multiple
microtubuli, filaments are rarely observed. In both,
human and macaque VENs, the somata and proximal
dendrites are sparsely contacted by small symmetric
inhibitory synaptic terminals. The long distal dendrites
show asymmetric terminals, which represent excitatory
input. Our findings may support the hypothesis that the
VENs are involved in the salient network. Axons are
identified emerging from the proximal dendrites, clearly
assessed in the macaque. VENs are often localized in
clusters; small gap junctions may occur between
neighbouring
somata
suggesting
electrotonic
transmission. Similar to other large projection neurons in
the deep cortical layers, perineuronal oligodendroglial
cells are often attached to the somata of the VENs,
mainly in the area of outgoing dendrites. The adjacent
Agnieszka Potasiewicz
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience and Drug
Development, Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academ,
Kraków
The effect of Ketamine on rats performance in the
slot machine task
Agnieszka Potasiewicz*,
Nikiforuk and Piotr Popik
Dominik
Rafa,
Agnieszka
Glutamatergic transmission plays essential role in
cognition.
Ketamine,
the
noncompetitive
glutamate/NMDA
receptor
antagonist,
produces
cognitive deficits, affecting attention, memory and
decision making in laboratory animals and in humans. In
addition, the impairments of inhibitory control
(impulsivity, compulsivity) are reported following
ketamine exposure. Pathological gambling, a behavioral
addiction resembling substance abuse disorder can be
modeled in laboratory rats using slot machine task
(rSMT). Animals that respond to the cues suggesting, but
not warranting food reward (‘near miss’ responses) can
be classified as ‘gamblers’. The correct response in this
task involves a number of cognitive processes. Animals
were trained in rSMT by responding to 3 flashing lights
(analogous to the wheels of a slot machine). A winning
trial was signaled when all 3 lights were illuminated. At
the end of each trial, the rat chose between responding
on the 'collect' lever (which, on the ‘win’ trials resulted in
reward delivery, and on the ‘loose’ trials in a time
penalty), or responding on the ‘roll’ lever that initiated
the next trial. We examined the effects of ketamine
following acute (10 mg/kg; Experiment 1) and subchronic (30 mg/kg for 10 days; Experiment2)
administration on rat’s performance in rSMT. The present
studies suggest that neither acute nor sub-chronic
administration of ketamine significantly affected the
interpretation of flashing light sequences (i.e., the
number of collect lever presses). In addition, the latency
to ‘collect’ lever response (i.e., the measure of decision
making) and the number of trials completed (i.e., the
indicator of locomotor activity) were unaltered by
ketamine administration. In conclusion, in the present
experimental settings, ketamine treatment had no effect
on the rats’ rSMT performance in the rats. Supported by
40
the grant NR 72/H/E/13 from the Ministry of Health
programme: “Support for scientific research into
gambling and other non-substance addictions along with
problem solving”, co-financed from the Gambling
Problem Solving Fund.
representation of the “Boomerang effect” and
demonstrate that it can be generated in a prosocial
context. Furthermore, these results suggest that anxious
individuals might be more vulnerable to negative affect
induced by persuasion communication, having potential
important implications in real life situations (eg,
persuasive health communication).
Charlotte Prevost
Biotech Campus, Geneva
Investigating
the
neural
correlates
of
the
“Boomerang effet” and its relationship to trait
anxiety in a prosocial context
Charlotte Prevost, Julie Cousin, Gidi Nave, Dean Mobbs,
Patrik Vuilleumier
When a behavioral freedom is being threatened, a
motivational state aimed at restoring this freedom might
be induced, a phenomenon known as psychological
reactance. Within this theoretical framework, the
“Boomerang effect” has been defined as the unintended
attitude change induced by persuasive communication.
Despite having numerous societal applications (eg, drug
initiation, consumer behavior), this effect has received
little empirical support and its neural correlates are still
unknown. Here, we aimed at providing both behavioral
and neural evidence for the “Boomerang effect” in a
prosocial context. Given that psychological reactance is
considered stress-inducing, we further hypothesized that
individuals scoring high on trait anxiety would be more
prone to this effect. Using fMRI, we scanned participants
while they decided whether making a donation to a
number of charity organizations based on a message
intended at persuading them in a more or less forceful
manner. Participants were endowed with 10 CHF prior to
entering the scanner, which they were free to either keep
for themselves or use in part for donation to a charity
during the experiment. When they decided to make a
donation, they were then asked how much they were
willing to donate. Conversely, when deciding not to
donate, participants were asked how confident they felt
about their decision. Trait anxiety was measured in a
post-scanning session using the STAI-trait questionnaire.
Behaviorally, we found that participants were less willing
to make donations when they felt that the message was
strongly intended at persuading them. In addition, the
propensity to exhibit this effect was predicted by
participants’ trait anxiety scores. At the neural level,
preliminary fMRI analyses revealed that activity in the
insula and lateral inferior frontal gyrus increased when
participants decided not to donate and the perceived
persuasion level of the message increased. Moreover,
activity in the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal
cortex increased as participants felt more confident about
not donating. Interestingly, participants with higher trait
anxiety also exhibited higher activity in these brain areas.
These findings provide new insight into the neural
Emilie Qiao-Tasserit
University of Geneva, Geneva
How do negative and positive moods shape face
perception ?
Emilie Qiao-Tasserit, Maria Garcia Quesada, Daphné
Bavelier, Patrik Vuilleumier, Swann Pichon
When you’re afraid, do you see more afraid faces around
you? It has long been known that high anxious
individuals attribute a more negative meaning to
ambiguous information (the so-called negativity bias).
But can such biases be induced transiently in a shortterm manner? On the other hand, can positive mood
induce the reverse bias? To test this hypothesis, we
studied how affect induction and anxiety can affect
ambiguous morphed faces interpretation. We used
fearful, neutral and happy video clips to induce negative,
neutral or positive affective states. After mood induction,
participants classified the expression of faces morphed at
varying proportions between fearful and happy
expressions. Following fearful movies, subjects classified
ambiguous faces as expressing fear more often than after
neutral or happy movies. After joyful videos, especially
the more absorbing ones, we also observed a trend
toward classifying ambiguous faces as expressing
happiness more often than after neutral or fearful movies.
Participants who scored high on depression and anxiety
scales classified more often ambiguous faces as fearful,
independently of mood, confirming the spontaneous
tendency to classify ambiguous information in a more
negative manner. Interestingly, highly absorbing happy
and neutral movie clips reduced the negative bias toward
fearful faces. These results add to the existing cognitive
bias literature showing that priming positive and negative
cognitions can change the extent to which individuals
direct attentional focus (Anderson et al, 2009) or interpret
ambiguous semantic information (MacLeod & Mathews
2012). To our knowledge, these are the first results to
demonstrate that short-term affect induction changes the
emotional meaning we attribute to facial expressions.
This knowledge might be useful in the context of
cognitive bias modification (CBM) in clinical training
interventions which aim at modifying biases which confer
vulnerability to anxiety (MacLeod and Mathews 2012,
Browning et al 2012). Keywords: mood induction, face
expression.
41
Dominik Rafa
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience and Drug
Development, Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academ,
The effect of ethanol in the rodent slot machine task
Dominik Rafa*, Agnieszka Potasiewicz,
Nikiforuk and Piotr Popik
Keywords: gambling, ethanol, rodent models
Agnieszka
Gamblers often take irrational decisions under the
influence of alcohol. Pathological gambling, a behavioral
addiction resembling substance abuse disorder can be
modeled in laboratory rats using slot machine task
(rSMT). The correct response in this task involves a
number of cognitive processes. We investigated whether
ethanol could alter rats gambling behavior. Animals were
trained in rSMT by responding to a series of three
flashing lights (analogous to the wheels of a slot
machine). A winning trial was signaled when all three
lights were illuminated. At the end of each trial, the rat
chose between responding on the 'collect' lever (that on
the ‘win’ trials resulted in reward delivery, and on the
‘loose’ trials in a time penalty), or responding on the ‘roll’
lever that initiated the next trial. After reaching stabile
baseline the test was performed. Ethanol (10%) was
injected IP at the doses of 0.5 and 1 g/kg in the volume
of 2 ml/kg, immediately later the performance on rSMT
was measured. The experiments were carried out in a
fully randomized Latin square design. We found that
neither 0.5 nor 1 g/kg of ethanol altered the pattern of
responses in rSMT. However, the higher dose of ethanol
reduced the number of completed trials. Present data
suggest that gambling behavior is not sensitive to
ethanol administration. Supported by the grant NR
72/H/E/13 from the Ministry of Health programme:
“Support for scientific research into gambling and other
non-substance addictions along with problem solving”,
co-financed from the Gambling Problem Solving Fund.
Daniel Renz
ETHZ, Zürich
Affective influences on internal evaluations during
planning
Humans can cognitively control their emotions, but vary
in how well they can do this and what kind of strategies
they tend to employ. Variations in these cognitive
emotion regulation strategies have been linked to
variation in the experience of positive emotions.
Conversely, emotions can influence cognitions. Theories
of psychological wellbeing and mood disorders have
often put emphasis more on one or the other, and there
is a substantial literature on their interplay. However,
there are rather fewer explicit or mechanistic
examinations of their interaction, and specifically of how
emotions come to influence the contents of cognition.
We therefore attempted to develop a method to allow a
very detailed examination of how emotional stimuli
influence the contents of cognitive processes. Subjects
were extensively trained on a sequential, goal-directed
affective decision-making task. In this task, participants
effectively have to plan paths through mazes to maximise
the total rewards and minimise the total losses earned
along these paths. In previous work, we have used
computational models of choice and found a Pavlovian
reflexive inhibition of planning at points of losses, and a
hierarchical division of plans at points of rewards. Here,
we extended this with eyetracking and used the gaze
location to inform the models at very fine resolution
about what subjects may have considered during their
cognitive planning. Specifically, in order to make a plan,
subjects must internally make multiple iterative decisions:
after having considered one choice, they must decide
what options to think about and consider the next. We
extend the previous computational modelling to
incorporate the eyetracking information and find that this
indeed improves our ability to predict subsequent
choices. This suggests that the combination of
eyetracking, computational modelling and goal-directed
planning reward/loss tasks may prove a useful way to
examine in forensic detail what consequences affective
stimuli have on the contents and the processes of
cognition.
Diana Roccaro
University of Fribourg, Dept. Medicine, Fribourg
Reduced Ultrasonic Vocalizations in Rats after a
KainicAcid-Induced Lesion of the PV1-Foxb1 Nucleus
We are currently investigating the function of the newly
detected PV1-Foxb1 nucleus (as neurons express either
parvalbumin [PV] or Foxb1) in the ventrolateral tuberal
hypothalamus of rodents. Based on its location within the
medial forebrain bundle as well as on its projection to the
ventrolateral periaqueductal grey, we hypothesize an
involvement of the PV1-Foxb1 nucleus in the regulation
of the expression of emotions (vocalizations), amongst
others. To test this hypothesis, twelve adolescent Wistar
rats were tickled as described before during four weeks
and ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) were recorded. It is
well known that tickling is a positive reinforcer that can
induce positive affect accompanied by the emission of
50-kHz USV in socially isolated rats. After the first two
weeks, test animals received a bilateral stereotactic
injection of kainic acid into the region of the PV1-Foxb1
nucleus, whereas control animals were injected saline or
only received a comparable skin suture. Based on residual
numbers of PV-immunoreactive cells in the PV1-Foxb1
nucleus, test animals were classified as successful or
mediocre lesions. In the group of successful lesions, 50kHz USV were almost entirely abolished after the
treatments, whereas their number remained relatively
42
constant or even increased in the other groups. These
results suggest a role of the lesioned structures in the
expression of vocalizations. As axons of the medial
forebrain bundle, passing through the PV1-Foxb1
nucleus, are not expected to express kainate receptors,
the neurons making up the PV1-Foxb1 nucleus are more
likely responsible for the effects induced by the lesions.
Gottfried R.S. Treviranus
(which makes them a prime target for subversion); c) their
intimate relations with interfaces, vessels, and especially
the neglected “lymphatic cauldron” which –from the
nailfold antennas and the various “ALT”s (associated
lymphatic tissues) feeds MCs into the extracranial
adventitia of cerebral arteries, and which is heavily
lateralized to the left; d) their being “in touch” with
peripheral neurogenic inflammatory or anti-inflammatory
para-parasympathetic nerves, of which they Freudian
nasal ganglion offers a basis for the shame reflex, as
triggered by biting inhibition, since afferents inhibit its
tonic output to the larger brain vessels, where MCs
regulate the BBB through a range of healing and
disruptive activities; d) their capacity to explain the
lateralization, localization and sexual dimorphism of brain
signatures of neuro-psychiatric disorders; e) their
capacity to allow for long-range cytokine actions through
“retard pellets” with junction-cracking and chemokine
properties, and f) they can change histones or cause
extracellular traps and micro-emboli. MCs gather at the
thalamus where the Cortico-Subcortico-Thalamic-Cortical
Circuits (CSTCs) are bundled closely together. Besides
disturbances at other CSTCs, those to dlPFC, ACC, and
OFC disturb the dimensions of THOUGHT, ACTION, and
MOOD correspond to the (T)(A)(M)-“bipolar engine” of
“dyn4” (below). MCs in the habenula strongly modulate
the SEEKING system. MCs activate modules during
parenthood and are primable one-cell-hormone-systems.
MCs are the prime source of 5-HT in the hippocampus,
likely targets of antidepressants and their ability to
“switch” mood in BPAD , mood stabilizers, and drugs of
abuse. MCs are involved in positive emotions and frenzy!
Kraepelin presaged a cycling “appropriation wave” (AW)
within a Pinel-Falret (T)(A)(M)-phase space. The “dyn4”model’s AWs are a shorthand for temperaments and
anxio-affective disorders. Their syllogistic structure (Axinn
1994), the 8+(7x8) assigned natural language terms, and
the prime motivator (Un)certainty orientation disclose a
function of emotion: to shape the balance (T) to (A) through the aACC.
The manifold roles of mast cell populations for
positive emotionality as guardians and migrating
instigators of circuits.
Jan Wacker, Desirée Schweiger
Rafal Rygula
Institute of Pharmacology Polish Academy of Sciences,
Kraków
Optimism: a cognitive construct that relates to
motivation
In humans, optimism is a cognitive construct that relates
to motivation: optimists exert effort while pessimists
disengage from effort. In this study, using recently
developed ambiguous-cue interpretation (ACI) paradigm
we took a unique opportunity to investigate whether trait
optimism is correlated with motivation also in animals. In
a series of ACI tests (cognitive bias screening), we
identified rats displaying ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’
traits. Subsequently, we investigated the trait differences
in motivation of rats to gain reward and to avoid
punishment using progressive ratio schedule of
reinforcement paradigm. Although ‚optimistic‘ and
‚pessimistic‘ animals did not differ in their motivation to
avoid punishment, the ‚optimistic‘ rats were significantly
more motivated to gain reward than their ‚pessimistic‘
conspecifics. For the first time, we demonstrated a link
between cognitive judgment bias (optimism) and
motivation in an animal model. As both investigated
processes are closely related to mental health and wellbeing, our results may be of value for preclinical
modeling of many psychiatric disorders.
Mast cells (MCs) are long-living primable versatile hubs
contributing insights to evolution, internal medical,
pharmacological, and psychiatry, beyond “fluid” PsychoNeuro-Endocrino-Immunology e.g. for bipolar disorders
(BPAD). The potential of MCs for “positive emotions” is
disclosed through an inventory of their a) intricate relay
faculties , b) their capacity for rapid predetermined
kanban-like cerebral migration into brain parenchyma
(e.g. social brain, habenula) on the occasion of psychosocial or microbe-triggered events through adventitial
spaces into the basal ganglia or directly from the
meninges into cortex (determining the Kraepelinian
dichotomy); c) their first-line-defendant and adaptivedefense orchestrating role in anti-microbial defense
University of Hamburg, and Philipps-Universität Marburg,
Germany
The positive emotion of warmth-liking and
interpersonal trust: A pharmacogenetic investigation
of opioidergic influences
Feelings of affection, acceptance, warmth and liking are
regularly activated in close interpersonal relationships
and have been theoretically linked to a “warmth-liking”
system modulated by brain opioids. However, in this
context opioidergic influences have received far less
attention than the frequently investigated neuropeptide
oxytocin, especially on the human level. In the present
study, either a neutral emotional state or warmth-liking
43
was induced in N = 95 female students by film/imagery
after double-blind administration of either placebo or the
opioid antagonist naltrexone (25 mg). We repeatedly
assessed current emotional state via self-report scales
and also measured interpersonal trust (TRUST) before
and after the emotion induction as a behavioral indicator
of warmth-liking. In addition, DNA was extracted from
buccal cells, purified, and genotyped for the A118G
polymorphism of the mu opioid receptor gene (OPRM1).
The results showed that (1) participants reported more
warmth-liking in the placebo/warmth-liking group than
in the placebo/neutral group and both naltrexone
groups, (2), TRUST increased in the warmth-liking group
after placebo, but not after naltrexone, and this pattern
was reversed in the neutral groups. Although the likewise
expected modulatory effect of OPRM1 genotype on these
general patterns was not significant in the present
sample, the general effects of the opioid blocker
naltrexone nonetheless strongly implicate brain opioids
in both WL and TRUST and suggest that future research
may benefit from simultaneously considering opioidergic
and neuropeptidergic influences.
Hongbo Yu
Peking University Beijing, Beijing
Activation in the brain valuation and affiliative
systems predicts repayment in a grateful situation
Research in social psychology has identified three
determinants of gratitude, i.e., “the recipient’s
perceptions of the intention of the benefactor, the cost to
the benefactor in providing the benefit, and the value of
the benefit” (Tesser et al., 1968). We investigated the
brain processing of need and cost using fMRI. The
participant interacted with an anonymous partner in a
dice-rolling game. In each round, the participant and the
partner rolled a dice twice in turn (the participant was
always leading). Those whose overall point was less than
five had to receive a pain stimulation, the strength of
which (high vs. low) was randomly determined at the
beginning of each round. Critically, after the partner
rolled once and the participant rolled twice, the partner
could decide whether to help the participant by giving
him/her 2 points. In one-third of the Help rounds, the
participant received 20 money units to be divided
between the partner and the participant with the
knowledge that the partner was not informed about the
procedure. The amount of allocation was used as an
online measure of gratitude. The factor of need was
manipulated by the strength of the stimulation (high pain
means high need) and the factor of cost was manipulated
by the risk the partner faced when deciding whether to
help. Specifically, when the partner got less than 5 points,
she faced higher risk (of getting less than 5 in the end
and being punished) if help. We focused on the Help
rounds and had 2 (high vs. low need) *2 (high vs. low
cost) conditions. Behaviorally, the participant allocated
more to the partner in the high risk conditions, especially
in the high need context. Neurally, high cost rounds
elicited activations in a salience network, including the
dorsal anterior cingulate and the bilateral anterior insula.
The activation were primarily driven by the differences
between high_need-high_risk and high_need-low_risk
conditions. Importantly, in the ventral striatum (vStr) and
the posterior orbitofrontal cortex, two structures
consistently implicated in value computation, the
activation positively correlated with difference in
allocation. Moreover, the difference in allocation was also
predicted by the functional connectivity between the vStr
and the septal area, which was associated with
mammalian attachment and close relationship. Our
findings highlighted the functions of the valuation and
affiliative systems in forming proper response in a
grateful situation.
Artur Marchewka
Nencki Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Characterization of the Nencki Affective Picture
System by discrete emotional categories (NAPS BE)
The Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS; Marchewka,
Żurawski, Jednorog, & Grabowska, 2014) is a
standardized set of 1,356 realistic, high-quality
photographs divided into five categories (people, faces,
animals, objects and landscapes). NAPS has been
primarily along the affective dimensions of valence,
arousal and approach-avoidance, yet the characteristics
of discrete emotions expressed by the images has not
been clarified so far. The aim of the present study was to
collect normative ratings according to both the
dimensional and categorical models of emotions. A
subset of 510 images was selected in order to
proportionally cover the whole dimensional affective
space. Among these, we identified images eliciting
distinguishable discrete emotions. Additionally, sex and
semantic category differences were examined and the
interaction effect of the two variables was found. We
introduce the Basic Emotion normative ratings for Nencki
Affective Picture System (NAPS BE), which will allow
researchers to control and manipulate stimulus
properties specifically for their experimental question of
interest. The NAPS BE system is freely accessible to the
scientific community for noncommercial use by request
at: http://naps.nencki.gov.pl.
Malgorzata Wierzba. Monika Riegel
Nencki Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL) as a linguistic
tool in neuroscience M. Riegel, M. Wierzba* * equal
contribution
Laboratory
of
Brain
Imaging,
44
Neurobiology
Centre,
Experimental Biology
Nencki
Institute
of
In the behavioural and neuroimaging studies of emotion,
the crucial challenge for a researcher is choosing the
appropriate and controlled stimuli to evoke emotional
states. So far, the standardized databases of verbal
stimuli have been created in certain languages, yet not in
Polish. Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL) is the cultural
adaptation of the German database Berlin Affective Word
List-Reloaded (BAWL-R) (Võ et al., 2009). It consists of
2902 emotional and neutral words with the controlled
psycholinguistic parameters, such as: frequency of use,
number of letters and grammatical form. All the words
have been standardized on the dimensions of emotions
such as valence and arousal, as well as imageability. The
obtained ratings of emotional arousal and emotional
valence formed the boomerang-shaped affective space,
in which emotionally valenced words are characterized by
higher arousal. Additionally, all the words were assigned
to the following discrete emotion categories: happiness,
anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. There are numerous
potential applications of the NAWL dataset, both in
behavioral and neuroimaging studies. In order to verify
its usefulness to investigate the neural correlates of
verbal material processing, we decided to conduct a
preliminary fMRI study. We used one of the most popular
paradigms in this field of research, namely the Lexical
Decision Task. We compared recognizing real words
expressing particular basic emotions, neutral words, and
pseuowords. We found the basic emotion effects in the
reaction times, as well as brain activations consistent with
the previous studies. As demonstrated in this experiment,
the standardized NAWL database may be useful in
studying emotions from both perspectives, dimensional
and discrete, both on the Polish population and in the
cross-cultural studies.
Katarzyna Jednorog
Nencki Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Directed forgetting of basic emotions – an fMRI study
Memory for emotional events is typically better than
memory for comparable non-emotional events. Here, for
the first time, we investigated whether memory control in
the directed forgetting paradigm is influenced by the
discrete category of basic negative emotions. 13 Polish
female students (mean age =20 years) participated in the
study. The experiment was divided into 2 phases. In the
study phase, participants during an fMRI session were
presented with 240 images taken from the Nencki
Affective Picture System. There were 120 neutral pictures:
60 followed by the instruction to-be-remembered (TBR)
and 60 followed by the instruction to-be-forgotten (TBF).
Additionally there 120 negative images were presented,
classified according to 3 basic emotions they evoked:
disgust, fear and sadness. Thus there were 20 TBR and 20
TBF pictures evoking specific negative emotion. In the
test phase, outside scanner, all stimuli were re-presented
and mixed pseudorandomly with new pictures (120
neutral and 120 negative). Subjects had to categorize
each picture, irrespective of the F/R instruction, as old
(displayed in the study phase) or new. The recognition
rate for TBR items was significantly higher than that for
TBF items. Further, we found a main effect of emotion
and emotion x instruction interaction. For TBR items, all
basic emotions had higher recognition rate than neutral
stimuli. Disgust and fear emotions were remembered
better than sadness. For TBF items, pictures evoking
disgust were harder to forget than neutral pictures. An
attempt to control memory was associated with frontal
regions of the brain whereas forgetting (both intentional
and incidental) – with widespread neural network in the
two hemispheres. Additionally, we found an effect of
basic emotions on activations in amygdala and
hippocampus.
45
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF
PARTICIPANTS
ADOLPHS Ralph
….…………………………14/23
ALBRECHT Urs
……………………….…….….16/17
ALVAREZ-BOLADO Gonzalo
…………..10/11
ANDREOLI Antonio
…………………………….26
ANNONI Jean-Marie
……………………...20/21
APAZOGLOU Kallia
…………………………17
BASSETTI Claudio
………………………………..19
BEHNCKE-IZQUIERDO Isabel
……………07/08
BILELLA Alessandro
…………………………….34
BLUE Philip
…………………………………………34
BURGDORF Christin
…………………………….24
CALANCHINI Carlo
……………………………...29
CAVADA Carmen
…………………………………10
CELIO Marco
………………………………….11/12
DE CARO Mario
……………………………..32/33
DERNTL Brigit
……………………………….27/28
DESFILIS Ester
………………………………..34/35
EVRARD Henry
…………………………………….13
FOX Glenn
……………………………………..23/24
GARFINKEL Sarah
………………………………..16
GERRANS Philip
…………………………………..24
GUASTELLA Adam
………………………………23
GUPTA Rashmi
……………………………………35
HOLSTEGE Gert
…………………………………..11
JEDNOROG Katarzyna
………………………….44
KAGAN Igor
…………………………………..15/16
KENNERLEY Steve
……………………………….15
KHATAMI Ramin
………………………………….20
KOOB George
……………………..………….27
KRING Ann M.
…………………………………24/25
LIU Jinting
……………………………………..35/36
LÜSCHER Christian
…………………………..…18
MACCIARDI Fabio
………………………….25/26
MARCHEWKA Artur
……………………….……43
MEAUX Emilie
……………………………………..36
MEDINA Loreta
……………………………...36/37
MIKUTTA Christian
………………………………07
MOBBS Dean
…………………………………22/23
MORAWETZ Carmen
……………………………37
MULLIGAN Kevin
………………………………...05
MUNDO Emanuela
……………………………26
MÜRI René
…………………………………….19/20
NAVRATILOVA Edita
……………………….37/38
NAVRATILOVA Zaneta
………………………..38
NEUHAUS/BAGUTTI
…………………………….38
OMIGIE Diana
……………………………………..07
PANKSEPP Jaak
……………………………..08/09
PASSAMONTI Luca
…………….………………28
PAULI Paul
…………………………………….30/31
PETRASCH-PARWEZ Elisabeth
………….39
POOL Eva
……………………………………………32
POTASIEWICZ Agnieszka
…………….39/40
PREVOST Charlotte
…………………………..40
PROVINE Robert
…………………………28/29
QIAO-TASSERIT Emilie
…………………………40
RAFA Dominik
………………………………….41
REICHLIN Massimo
……………………………...06
RENZ Daniel
………………………………………..41
ROBERTS Angela
……………………………14/15
ROCCARO Diana
……………………………41/42
RUCH Willibald
……………………………………30
RYGULA Rafal
…………………………………..42
SANDER David
…………………………………….30
SAPER Clif
…………………………………………..18
SCHRÖDER Tim
……………………………….05/06
SCHULTZ Wolfram
…………………………13/14
SCHWARTING Rainer
…………………………..31
SINGER Tania
………………………………………22
STUDER Barbara
………………………………….31
SUBRAMANIAN Hari
…………………………..12
TAMIATI Francesco
………………………..06/07
TREVIRANUS Gottfried R.S.
…………………42
VON DUERING Monika
………………………..39
VUILLEUMIER Patrik
…………………………….19
WACKER Jan
………………………………….42/43
WATTENDORF Elise
………………………….12/13
WAUGH Christian
…………………….………….32
WIERZBA Malgorzata
………..……… 43/44
YU Hongbo
……………………………..……...43