Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot

an evolutionary theory of emotion 137
value of the taste in that it is not affected by hunger. In the secondary taste
cortex, in the orbitofrontal region (see Figs. 5.3 and 5.4), the reward value
of the taste is represented in that neurons respond to the taste only if the
primate is hungry. In another example, in the visual system, representations
of objects which are view-, position- and size-invariant are produced in the
inferior temporal visual cortex after many stages of cortical processing (see
Rolls & Deco, 2002); and these representations are independent of the emotional
valence of the object. Then, in structures such as the orbitofrontal
cortex and amygdala, which receive input from the inferior temporal visual
VISION
V1 V2 V4
TASTE
Taste
Receptors
Nucleus of the
solitary tract
Thalamus
VPMpc nucleus
OLFACTION
TOUCH
Olfactory
Bulb
Thalamus VPL
Inferior temporal
visual cortex
Frontal operculum/Insula
(Primary Taste Cortex)
Olfactory (Pyriform)
Cortex
Insula
Amygdala Striatum
Gate
Orbitofrontal
Cortex
Primary somatosensory cortex (1.2.3)
Lateral
Hypothalamus
Gate
function
Hunger neuron controlled
by e.g. glucose utilization,
stomach distension or body
weight
Figure 5.3. Schematic diagram showing some of the gustatory, olfactory,
visual, and somatosensory pathways to the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala
and some of the outputs of the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. The
secondary taste cortex and the secondary olfactory cortex are within the
orbitofrontal cortex. V1, primary visual cortex; V2 and V4, visual cortical
areas; VP1, ventral posterolateral; VPM, ventral posterior medial.