The Amygdalas Effect

To coordinate with our current chapter on emotions, our class watched the film Inside Out. The story was about the emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, controlling a goofy, honest, and caring 11 year old named Riley. Inside her brain, the emotions used controls to decide the way Riley feels. The part of the brain the “control center” in Inside Out represented was the Limbic System. I know this because during in our Body and Mind unit, the part of the brain we most associated with mood and emotions was this system. It is best defined as a complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, including areas concerned with instinct and mood. The Limbic System’s main control is emotions and drives feelings, which was the main purpose of the emotions “control center.”

In Chapter 8 “Where the Wild Things Are,” the author Le Doux looked at the how our brain regions and systems functioned during the development of anxiety disorders. He introduced many researchers’ ideas and theories such as Pavlovian conditioning and instrumental conditioning; then, he listed the brain regions that were associated with anxiety and fear conditioning such as hippocampus, amygdala, sympathetic nervous system, and various brain cortexes. He also explained how our brain became conditioned for different anxiety disorders.

Signal processing within the amygdala is further regulated by interactions with a network of external structures. In particular, the dMT and its projections to the CeL have been demonstrated to play a role in fear memory retrieval. Notably, the dMT is assumed to be extensively modulated by opioids considering its innervation with opioidergic fibers and the high expression levels of MORs. Previous studies have reported the MOR system in the PVT, as part of the dMT, to be involved in managing physical pain. Moreover, social pain, which describes social rejection, being excluded or not being liked by others and which is associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression, appears to involve the MOR system in the PVT (Hsu et al). However, so far a direct implication of

There have been various studies which have attempted to investigate whether brain dysfunction can lead to certain defects, and damage to the prefrontal cortex is an area of research that over the years has shown to have negative effects on behaviour, cognition and emotions. The prefrontal cortex is situated on the frontal lobes of the brain and the frontal lobes are generally concerned with discouraging unsuitable and inapt behaviours. The prefrontal cortex usually play a fundamental role in one’s decision making, organisation of information and planning. Hence, any damage to the prefrontal cortex leads to a lack in decision making and an inability to plan.

Emotions run the world: many buy the “perfect dress” to feel confident, others run for fun, and others sleep as their sadness increases. Thus, in a world where emotions lead, mankind struggles to reason. Dr. Mark G. Baxter, a neuroscientist at Harvard University, and Dr. Elisabeth A. Murray, a Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health, are perfect examples of why many professionals in the science and medical field should start to investigate the amygdala, an “almond-shaped group of nuclein” associated with emotion, due to it being one of the most important parts of the brain as it is what defines what people do in their everyday basis. Nature, one of the most respected journals in the scientific community, published Dr. Baxter and Dr. Murray’s “The Amygdala and Reward” on July 2002 Nature Publishing Group arguing through ethos and logical appeals that the amygdala processes reward in the brain as well a negative emotions. Both neuroscientists prove the importance of understanding the connections between reward and emotions by analyzing their experiments performed on moneys and other primates, and including facts and statistics from other scientists and doctors. This well crafted article conscientiously analyzes how the amygdala’s role in stimulus-reward learning might be just as important as its role in processing negative fear and conditioning by providing credibility, reliability, logic, and reason to the audience.

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 amygdala video was very informing to me. Our amygdala is a small region in our brain that is in the temporal lobe which is located behind your ear. The first part that stuck with me through this video is the picture/shape that he gave. Our amygdala is shaped like an almond where it primarily associated with fear because it is must easier to study fear than things that are good. The amygdala gets sensory information directly from the various sensory systems. I think that it’s interesting that our amygdala can take in information for the environment and use the information. Our brain knows when something painful is about to happen. I think this can tie into the way I feel before I get a shot from the doctor. My brain knows which allows me

The researcher tested 25 different participants in a penny-jar test while the participants were hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) to monitor their brain during the test. The fMRI showed a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that is connected to a person’s emotions.

The importance of the amygdala in social cognitions has been examined in both primate and human studies. Use of primates to study the social brain suggests that the amygdala contributes to social cognition. Kluver and Bucy made large bilateral lesions in monkey brains made across the amygdala, temporal neocortex, and surrounding structure. After the lesion, the animals engaged in hypersexual behaviors, unusual tameness, and a lack of knowledge about emotional stimuli. Lesions exclusively targeting the monkey’s amygdala resulted in similar, but more subtle impairments. This suggest that the amygdala may play a role in emotions elicited by social cues. Studies of the amygdala’s role in human social cognition suggest that the temporal lobes process socially relevant facial information from humans. Emotions from facial expressions, in particular fear are projected to the amygdala. Studies using FMRI to examine typical subjects and subjects with amygdala damage support this theory. Individuals with amygdala damage have difficulty recognizing facial expressions, specifically negative emotions such as fear.

In the limbic system, there are two almond shaped groups of amygdalae. The two amygdalae (left and right) together make up what we call the Amygdala. Amygdala in Greek means almond, hence corresponding the name with the shape. The amygdala’s right and left portions differ in specific processing. The left and right amygdalae also have different roles when it comes to the encoding of emotional memory for events. In humans the right amygdala is larger than the left (Murphy et al., 2009) this could contribute to the right hemisphere being more dominant for emotion. The amygdala can also differ according to sex. For example in both humans and rats, a male’s amygdala tends to be larger than a female. Nevertheless the two amygdalae work together in

“In 2002 James Blair of the NIMH showed that they are not good at detecting emotions, especially fear, in another person’s voice. They also have trouble identifying fearful facial expressions” (Kiehl and Buckholtz 25). The paralimbic system is contain several interconnected brain regions that allow one’s brain can record feelings and sensations of others to help he or she recognize that emotional values. The regions are anterior cingulate, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, posterior cingulate, insula, and temporal pole. These regions help to control one’s behavior. For example, In the Anterior cingulate regions, it provides empathy, affect, decision making, and cognitive control. People who their brain are damaged in the orbitofrontal cortex wouldn’t have the ability to

Repeated stress is associated with aberrant glial morphology. The anomalous glial responses following stress are manifested as depression and associated disorders. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) exerts a positive regulation of the HPA axis and undergoes hypertrophy following stress. It is not known if the BLA hyperactivity is responsible for the stress-induced gliosis in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Accordingly, we evaluated if temporary or permanent inactivation of BLA could prevent the stress-induced aberrant glial morphology in the PFC. The chronic stress leads to microgliosis in prelimbic cortex. The inactivation of BLA during stress prevented the microgliosis in prelimbic cortex. These results indicate that the BLA plays an important regulatory role in the stress-induced deleterious effects on the microglial structure and function in the PFC.

Many people may freak at the mention of eating apple seeds, cherry pits, or apricot seeds, as they contain cyanide. New research, however, suggests those seeds may be a cancer cure in waiting.

When we think of the word ‘evil’ we think bad, wrong, sinful. How do we know what is evil? We are born pure and sin free, we are also born into the world that our mother gives us, it is up to her on how she makes us see the world as we are young. Many of the murders these days come from a family full of neglect, or maybe an abusive home Which could be the cause of the sinful things they commit later on in life. A family full of problems and hate can make you carry hate in your heart which could potentially then turn you evil. Then again, What really is evil and good? It all depends on what you think in your head, Some people have small amygdala, which affects their ability to have empathy for others. That is the neurological reason for people

Chapter 2 is centered on the early attempts to identify the brain’s components of emotions. Key researchers that are discussed are a Cornell neuroanatomist, James Papez, and aforementioned physician and neuroscientist Paul MacLean, who worked at Yale and the National Institutes of Mental Health. Together, this pair of researchers conducted seminal medial temporal lobe lesion experiments. The resulting idea was that the emotional brain is composed of a set of interconnected structures in the core of the brain. MacLean dubbed these structures as the “limbic system”. The function of the limbic system and it relationship to emotion was widely debated by many researchers.