Amygdala and empathy

1. Amygdala and empathy

In order to be empathetic, a person must first have the ability to correctly interpret another’s facial expressions and posture in order to determine their emotional state. According to Kalat (2013), a person with damage to the amygdala, while still able to categorize a photo as pleasant or unpleasant, experience less of the ‘feeling’ that typically accompanies viewing emotional photos.  I would expect someone with damage to this part of the brain to have a diminished capacity to truly feel for others and employ empathy.

1. Autonomic arousal and emotion

The James-Lange theory suggests that the emotions we ‘feel’ are a result of our bodies arousal and actions, in other words, we ‘feel’ afraid after we become cognitively aware of a frightening situation and our body responds to that awareness by reacting (increased heart rate, running away, etc.) (Kalat, 2013).  If women have a longer autonomic arousal than men, I would expect that women would have stronger emotional reactions and feelings than men.

1. Physical state and emotion

According to Kalat (2013), a person’s perception of the actions of the body contribute to our emotions.  Studies have shown that those reading comics while smiling rate them as funnier and that forced smiling while encountering a stressful experience decreased the heart rate of participants (Kalat, 2013).  I would anticipate that a person who were forced to smile all the time might feel more positive emotions.  However, it would make social situations very awkward at times.  Imagine being at a funeral and not being able to control your facial expression.  I think the difficulty experienced in social situations due to the inability to remove your smile would lead to diminished social experiences and possibly lead to a more isolated life which could result in depression.

1. Serotonin and violence

The current thinking about the relationship between serotonin and violence is that serotonin is a contributing factor in aggressive behavior but it is not correlated strongly enough to predict the behavior of an individual solely based on serotonin levels (Kalat, 2013).   There are many factors which contribute to aggressive behavior such as testosterone levels and environmental factors (Hooley et al., 2014).  Studies have shown that people who tend to behave aggressively are even more sensitive to serotonin depletion (University of Cambridge, 2011).

Classmate 2 –Summer Bowlin

1)

The amygdala is a part of the brain, and its function is to mainly process emotions, and emotional responses. Empathy is essentially understanding another beings pain, or situation, and being able to express understanding, sympathy, or otherwise provoking some sort of translatable emotional response. The amygdala is  something that I would  consider necessary to express or feel empathy. If someone suffered damage to the amygdala I would expect to notice lack of understanding, empathetic behavior, and an overall lack in processing emotional information dealing with others, or ones self.

 

2)

If the James-Lange theory is correct this could mean that women are in deed “more emotional beings” as compared to their male counterparts. This of course is something that is a broad, and a general statement, and could not possible apply to everyone. I digress however- This theory would suggest that women experience longer lasting emotional responses, where males still experience the emotional response, but in smaller time quantities, or less intensity.

3)

If an individual is unable to stop smiling due to an illness (lets call it “smileys) this could inevitably lead to severe emotional distress, and possibly social issues as well. For starters, lets imagine that this person is in severe pain, and trying to seek medical attention at the local emergency room. The nurses, and doctors are having a hard time believing that he is in such pain and decides not to prescribe medication, or additional treatment. This could cause him to feel as if he is not taken seriously, his feelings are invalid, he is not important, and eventually lead to long lasting issues of frustration, and possibly anger. The smileys could affect this persons life greatly, and cause severe emotional distress.

4)

Serotonin is one of the chemicals in our brain that is responsible for our feelings. This chemical, along with others helps regulate things such as mood, sexual desire, sleep, and even memory.  The current thought process regarding the chemical states that serotonin can possibly be related to aggressive behavior/violence. When the level of serotonin in the body is low, this could potentially produce negative behavior, and poor decision making. To further along this study I would like to review some cases where someone committed an act of violence, and look to see if there was a history chemical imbalance.