The Role of the Amygdala in Human Functioning Essay

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].

The research argues that PS affects the amygdala, a socioemotional control center in the brain that plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders. The claim is backed by several studies. PS plays a major role in abnormal psychological, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes in both human and animals. Charil

The amygdala is the area of the brain that is involved with emotional regulation and mood. This is the area that is affected by living the city.

Because of Patient SM’s condition, she has been harmed, held at gunpoint, and has even had history of being involved in domestic violence. She does not have the capability to learn from the situations she has been through. The amygdala is very important and it is also the reason why we connect fearful stimuli to a particular situation. Therefore, Patient SM lacks the ability to connect the stimulus and memories she has obtained through these situations.

The amygdala of psychopaths have has been found to be hypoactive during fear conditioning (Birbaumer et al., 2005), moral decision-making (Glenn, Raine, & Schug, 2009), and social cooperation (Rilling et al., 2007). As expected, studies have also found the amygdala to be hypoactive in response to fearful faces or other affect-related activity (e.g. Carré et al., 2013; Kiehl et al., 2001). Nevertheless, Müller et al. (2003) found that psychopaths had increased activation in the amygdala (in addition to increased prefrontal activation) when viewing negative content (e.g. pictures of threatening animals, wounded people) which they interpreted as reflecting abnormal prefrontal – amygdala communication.” (Umbach et al., 2015,

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.

While owning his own Brain Center, Dr. Fotuhi also works along the side of notable universities, “... completing my Ph.D in neuroscience at John Hopkins University before I started medical school. I was actually in the M.D program at Harvard by way of a teaching scholarship offered through Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology…” (11-12). Attending two of the top ten universities in the United States justifies his credibility in the neurology field. Dr. Fotuhi obtained a high level of knowledge of the human brain and is proven by his Ph.D and his accomplishments that were rewarded by a scholarship. Using what Dr. Fotuhi has learned during schooling, he educates us about the topics of neurology while demonstrating expertise by his vocabulary, “... a limbic lobe, a collection of cortical areas in the frontal and temporal lobes, plus some deeper brain structures. One is the amygdala… which is tied to emotions. Another component of the limbic lobe is the hypothalamus, which regulates hormones…” (15). Professionalism is presented as he defines and elaborates about each component of a brain while using scientific terms. Dr. Fotuhi’s tone is serious and indicates his proficiency about neurology which carry on to his novel’s main message and title, Boost Your Brain. Fotuhi’s titles and achievements are never shunned and maintains his professional speech from start to

Would I be able to support women who are ‘challenging’, to say the least, like Jude did with her example of Hortense?

Due to its primary role in processing memory and emotional reactions, over the last decade and a half psychologists have been linking the amygdala to psychopathy. It is involved in aversive conditioning and instrumental learning and is thus involved in all the processes that, when impaired, produce the same functional impairments displayed by psychopaths. Two famous studies conducted by Tiihonen and Kiehl respectively have confirmed this. Tiihonen used a volumetric MRI to test and confirm the positive correlation between low amygdaloid volume and a high degree of psychopathy in violent criminals (measured by the Hare checklist-revised) while Kiehl used a functional MRI to prove reduced amygdala response during an emotional memory task in individuals who scored high on the Hare checklist-revised. However, both these studies along with numerous others were conducted using violent offenders as subjects rather than individuals with psychopathy. Although many psychopaths do exhibit violent tendencies, not all violent offenders are necessarily psychopaths. A study conducted by Raine is one of the few that did focus only on individuals exhibiting psychopathy. In his study Raine was able to show reduced prefrontal grey matter in his test subjects. Unfortunately though, he was unable to differentiate between grey matter in different regions of the prefrontal cortex. It is however clear that there is one region of the frontal cortex that could be

For more than 26 years in neuroscience, Dr. Antonio Alcalá Malave has investigated the relationship of his patients with their emotions, which resulted in a tremendous affinity between diseases and distant memories of their ancestors. This discovery led to the book "The genetics of emotion: The origin of the disease," postulated that expressed from a scientific view that our body is genetically

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.

(Pardo, Pardo et al. 1990, Wang, Luo et al. 2003, Carter and van Veen 2007, Schall and Boucher 2007, Weible, Rowland et al. 2009). The dorsal ACC (ACd) is considered as the cognitive component, while the ventral ACC (ACv) is considered as the emotional part (Bush, Luu et al. 2000), The ACd is a ‘central station’ processing both top-down and bottom-up stimuli because of its complex connection with prefrontal cortex (PFC), parietal cortex as well as motor system. The ACv is connected with the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, and is involved in processing emotional and motivational information. Clinically, ACC is implicated in a number of psychiatric conditions (e.g., dementia like Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, autism, anxiety

An amygdala is at its very essence linked to the sentiment of anxiety or fear. Its function is more broadly defined to the genre of emotions only because anxiety or fear can manifest themselves in far more colors than their prototypes are limited to; fear can make an individual lash out, a behavioral mechanism that is typically comprehended as anger, and anxiety can cause a person to break down or cry, and society would perceive this as depression. Most emotions are interconnected, and no matter the emotion one feels they are experiencing with respect to a particular hurdle in their life, those emotions are an incarnation of either fear or anxiety, which in turn are born to the human brain’s amygdala. An individual can call something their

The idea that distinct brain regions are involved in emotion and cognition has been widely supported for a long time. Subcortical regions of the brain such as the amygdala (LeDoux, 2000; Lesvesque et al., 2003) and the limbic system (Olds & Milner, 1954) are thought of as primarily emotional brain areas. Thus, the activation of these subcortical structures signals the processing of an emotional stimulus (Lesvesque et al., 2003). On the other hand, certain cortical brain regions are identified as primarily cognitive areas such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) (Goldman-Rakic, 1996) and the activation of these cortical structures indicates the occurrence of cognitive processing (Mansouri, Tanaka & Buckley, 2009). The functional

Gory video games and vicious films may have a great impact on the appearance of violence in society, but they are not the sole causes. Over time, multiple biological explanations have been unearthed as well. The most common discovery is a mutation in the prefrontal cortex, which is located in the frontal lobe of the brain. When fully developed, the frontal lobe is used to make carefully thought out decisions before taking action. An alteration in the prefrontal cortex may make us susceptible to impulsive and rash behaviors. For example, teens tend to be more reckless than adults as a result of the premature frontal lobe. Teens also rely on their amygdala to make decisions, which may result in violent actions as well. The amygdala is the center