Dialectical Experiments

The amygdalae (Latin, also corpus amygdaloideum, singular amygdala, from Greek αμυγδαλή, amygdalē, 'almond', 'tonsil', listed in the Gray's Anatomy as the nucleus amygdalæ)[1] are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans.[2] Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system.[3].

(Sybil walks into the living room and sees a bouquet of flowers and a card. She is by herself.)

A part in the brain called hippocampus is very important to memory. Hippocampus is the vital key to remembering and it is also vital to emotions. It also helps you make new memories so you aren’t just remembering the past. The cerebral cortex is also very important. It helps you do things without you thinking about them. Examples of what the cerebral cortex does is breathing, how to swallow, or to catch yourself before you

In addition, the limbic system is responsible for our perception of other emotions, both positive and negative, which explains the mood altering properties of many drugs. The cerebral cortex is divided into areas that control specific functions. Different areas process information from our senses, enabling us to see, feel, hear, and taste. The front part of the cortex, the frontal cortex or forebrain, is the thinking center of the brain, it powers our ability to think, plan, solve problems, and make decisions.

The parabrachial nucleus is a center for regulation of physiologic manifestations of fear avoidance and anxiety 83. These connections develop information about whole body rotation and position with respect to gravity. This information is linked to threat assessment pathways via connections between parabrachial nucleus and the central nucleus of the amygdala 85. Connections between amygdala and superior colliculi and between amygdala and thalamus link visual and somatosensory inputs to threat assessment pathways 86. Sensory inputs and assessment of threat converge in the hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the insula, and anterior cingulate. These four structures are components of both the limbic and the vestibular cortex 87. Vestibuloparabrachial network and amygdala-locus coeruleus outputs

Scientist has identified the region of the brain that is called the amygdala which is responsible for instinctual reactions including fear and aggressive behavior. (AACAP) The frontal cortex is the area of the brain that controls reasoning and help us think before we act, this develops later. (AACAP)

Dialectical Inquiry: Dialectical inquiry is a collective choice making method that spotlights on guaranteeing full thought of options. Basically, it includes separating the gathering into contradicting sides, which wrangle about the points of interest and burdens of proposed arrangements or choices. A comparative collective choice making strategy, villain’s promotion, requires that one individual from the gathering feature the potential issues with a proposed choice (McMurray, 1993).

The hippocampus is part of the limbic system that controls the emotions and autonomic nervous system. The hippocampus controls long-term and short-term memory. It is located in the medial temporal lobe of the brain behind the Amygdala (Hayhurst, 2002). The hippocampus links memory and emotion together,

Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory is the last information that can be forgotten, its impairment has become very common nowadays. The dysfunction is exemplified by many neurological disorders such as amnesia. There are two types of amnesia, anterograde and retrograde. Anterograde amnesia is inability in forming new information, while retrograde refers to the loss of the past memory. As suggested by Cipolotti and Bird (2006), hippocampus’s lesions are

involved in memory storage. The hippocampus is a place in the brain that is used to

Memory cells are placed in three parts of the brain, the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex, and also the basolateral amygdala, which is responsible of emotional associations. In fact these cells are necessary to evoke the emotions linked with particular memories and they connect with hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

The Thalamus decides where to send incoming sensory data. The Amygdala decodes emotion, determines possible threats, and stores fear memories. The Sensory Cortex interprets the sensory data. Also, the Hippocampus stores and receives. The Hypothalamus activities the “fight or flight” response, and processes sets of stimuli to establish context.

It has been found that the hippocampus might be an intermediary between the neo-cortex's representations and the filing away of information into long term memory. This would go along with the idea of various components of the nervous system communicating with each other to create inputs and outputs. In one study, rats were presented with food only if a tone and a light were presented together. Rats which had received a lesion to the hippocampus had a hard time learning the conditioned response to obtain the food. This finding might lead one to the idea that the lesion affected the animal's ability to remember or retrieve the information that would tell it to perform the response and get food. Animals when trained to a fearful stimulus in a specific context will become conditioned to the context, they will begin to fear the context in which the fearful stimulus is given. Animals with hippocampal lesions do not gain this context conditioning. Or rather, they do not gain a fear of the context of the situation where fearful shocks are given. (http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.eichenbaum.html) This prompted some researchers to think that the hippocampus may have something to do with our ability to remember context, or context cues that surround us in the real world.

The limbic system was first recognized due to Franz Josef Gall (LeDoux, J., 1996). Franz Joseph Gall developed the idea of “phrenology” that focused on the study of the different variations of bumps on the human skull to be related to differences in behavioral and emotional functioning. The limbic system’s main function in the brain is to control emotional behaviors and certain forms of memories that are infused with emotion (amygdala). The amygdala is a part of the brain that forms the tail end of the basal ganglia within the rostral temporal lobe and is located near the hippocampus (Lambert, K.G. & Kinsley, C .H., 2005). The amygdala, as defined by the text, is an almond-shaped structure that functions as a part of the limbic system involved in regulation of emotion and sexual urges (Lambert, K.G. & Kinsley, C .H., 2005). In addition, the amygdala is comprised of a dozen or more sub regions that are not all involved in fear conditioning (LeDoux, J., 1996).

The Limbic system compromises of detailed structures which control and regulate major affective activities such as fright, anxiety, and happiness. Further functions of the limbic system are motor functions, sensory systems, hormones and memory which all contribute to the control of affective states. These factors are controlled and regulated by different structures of the limbic system and work inter-relatedly. The central components of the limbic system compromise of the limbic cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, fornix and mammillary bodies. The limbic system also currently involves cortical and non-cortical brain structures such as diencephalon, brainstem and the forebrain. The diencephalon compromises of the thalamus and the hypothalamus, the forebrain includes the basal ganglia and amygdala while the function of the brainstem is to form a connection between the cerebrum and the spinal cord. (Hendelman, 2000). The origin of the limbic system stemmed from the evolutionary period. This is because, during the evolutionary period, brains have developed in a structure that enables mammals to adapt to their environment. For example the forebrain in mammals has evolves to fulfil this function of adaptability of behaviour to the external world (Maclean cited in Hendelman, 2000). Therefore, this has resulted in a different functions and roles of the limbic system in terms of adapting to environments such as fright and how to react in fearful situations. However, the functions of