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History
The term ‘amygdala’ was first used by Burdach (1819) and referred to a set of nuclei in the brain (Aggleton & Saunders, 2000). In 1939, researchers Klüver & Bucy inflicted bilateral lesions of the inferior temporal lobe of monkeys in a laboratory in an attempt to reduce aggression. These lesions affected the cortical areas, amygdala, and the hippocampus. Later this became known as Klüver-Bucy syndrome, and consisted of symptoms such as psychic blindness, hypermetamorphsis, oral tendencies, and changes in emotional and sexual behaviors. Lesions of the amygdala made monkeys fearless of e.g. humans or snakes, and affectively flat, tame. This research brought recognition to the notion that the amygdala plays a significant role in the recognition of emotional and social relevance of sensory stimuli. In 1995, Bechara conducted a dissociation study that concluded that amygdala function is dissociated from hippocampus functioning. In other words, Bechara clarified that the amygdala is responsible for the acquisitioning of fear conditioning whereas the hippocampus is responsible for memory of conditioning procedures.
In the year 1990 up until the year 1996, LeDoux studied the role of different brain structures in rats in reference to fear conditioning. He found that after creating lesions in the amygdala fear conditioning did not take place. Furthermore, his research concluded that the amygdala is an important structure for fear learning and the expression of emotion. In addition, LeDoux’s research also demonstrated that the hippocampus provides contextual information and interacts with the amygdala in fear learning as well as emotional memory. Overall all of the past research conducted demonstrates how the amygdala plays a cle...
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“At the University of California at Irvine, experiments in rats indicate that the brain’s hormonal reaction to fear can be inhibited, softening the formation of memories and the emotions they evoke” (Baard).
Eichenbaum, H., Otto, T., & Cohen, N. J. (1992). The hippocampus—what does it do? Behavioral
Kurayama, Matsuzawa, Komiya, Nakazawa, Yoshida, Shimizu, (2012) confirmed that these neutral stimuluses deed indeed has an effect and played a role in fear conditioning in people. The case showed that Treena had indeed learned to be scared of the incident and it proceeded to become a cue for to get anxious and get panic attacks. It has been claimed that patients with panic disorder exhibited fear potentiated startle responses to safety cues and therefore reduced discrimination between safety and danger signals during acquisition, indicating that the safety signal was processed as the aversive event in contrast to the danger signal (Nees, Heinrich, Flor, 2015). It also showed that the her failing to answer the question had affected her in other classes when she would not participate in other classes hence, this showed that the neutral stimulus has developed and grew into a conditioned stimulus which evoked feelings of fear and anxiety in her, in other words it had become a cue for her to be scared and
amygdala and the hippocampus. Those parts of the brain link fear and memory together. With
In observational learning, a child takes note of what his or her mother or father considers to be threatening. On the other hand, children can also be conditioned by their own life experiences through a process called operant conditioning (SOURCE). In some instances, children tend to generalize their fears, subsequently forming a phobia. For example, a young girl who became increasingly cautious of flying insects after an unpleasant encounter with a nest of agitated yellow jackets. After being assaulted by these creatures, she associated all flying bugs with the painful sting of a yellow jacket. Of course, children can also be classically conditioned to display a fearful response; that is, they learn to associate an unconditioned fear-relevant stimulus with a conditioned stimulus, provoking a conditioned, fearful response. One of the most well-known examples of this is an experiment involving a young boy, famously dubbed Little Albert. Little Albert learned to fear small furry animals in a laboratory setting when the presence of these creatures was paired with loud banging noises (SOURCE). From the aforementioned experiments and studies, it is undeniable that external circumstances and experiences assist in the configuration of fear in
In other words, Henry cannot encode and compose short-term memory, and recall long-term memory of his past experience. Additionally, Henry’s amygdala has also been removed from this surgery, which caused him to learn fear from daily life and remember some unpleasant events. Therefore, Henry always expresses happiness more than sad and unhappy emotions. It is an interesting finding that amygdala is associated with fear memory and emotional expression. Henry Gustav died in 2008.
The focus of this literature review is on the patterns of amygdala activation and its role in attentional threat assessment, as well the effects of the neuropeptide oxytocin on the amygdala. The amygdala plays an important role in human threat assessment. In both humans and primates, the identification of facial expressions and their direction of gaze is a necessary aspect of social behavior, and the amygdala plays a large role in this function (Boll, Gamer, Kalisch, & Buchel, 2011, p. 299). From a medical standpoint, the study of the amygdala would help in understanding the neurological basis of many behavior disorders such as borderline personality disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. These studies make use of novel techniques with a combination of functional MRI and eye tracking based face perception tasks. More recent studies have involved more precise imaging in order to observe specific regions of the amygdala, rather than the amygdala as a whole structure. The amygdala is strongly influenced by fearful and angry faces, which stimulate feelings of threat. The amygdala also exhibits differential activation in different sexes, thus having extensive implications on tailoring drugs for mood disorders in the different sexes (Lischke et al., 2012, p. 1432).
There are many studies pertaining to generalized anxiety disorder. The studies examine the genetic and environmental risks for major anxiety disorders, their course-both alone and when they occur along with other diseases such as depression-and their treatment. Like heart disease and diabetes, these brain disorders are complex and probably result from a combination of genetic, behavioral, developmental, and other factors. Much of the research of anxiety centers on the amygdale, an almond-shaped structure deep within the brain. The amygdale is believed to serve as a communications hub between the parts of the brain that process incoming sensory signals and the parts that interpret them. Other research focuses on the hippocampus, another brain structure that is responsible for processing threatening or traumatic stimuli. By learning more about brain circuitry involved in fear and anxiety, scientists may be able to devise new and more specific treatments for anxiety disorders. Researchers are attempting to learn how genetics and experience interact in each of the anxiety disorders-information they hope will yield clues to prevention and treatment.
These differences turned out to be due to the details of the procedure, they performed separate scans for the actual presented words, and the not presented but related words, and for unrelated new words (Schacter, 2001). Epinephrine and norepinephrine also have shown to improve memory because increase glucose levels in the blood, and they affect the amygdala, which plays a part in emotional memory (Durand, 2005). Neurons in the basolateral amygdala that were activated during a fear conditioning were activated again during memory retrieval of the feared object. The amount of reactivated neurons showed a correlation with the behavior associated of that fear memory; this indicates a correlation between neurons of the amygdala and memory (Scripps, 2007).
Kiehl’s (2006) literature review continues with this idea of amygdala implication in psychopathic traits by saying that the amygdala, in particular o...
In “The Brain on Trial”, David Eagleman recounts the horrifying events which occurred on August 1, 1966. Charles Whitman entered the University of Texas with a rifle and secured himself in the bell tower. He then proceeded to shoot and kill 13 people and injure 32 more. Whitman was also shot and killed; however, during his autopsy it was discovered that a tumor was pressing against his amygdala. According to Eagleman, “The amygdala is involved in emotional regulation, especially of fear and aggression” (2011).
The documentary, “Amazing Secrets About the Human Brain” presented by the History Channel, explains how the brain works to people with little to no academic knowledge on the subject. The brain is “the most complicated device” humans have found, so it is certainly a topic of interest to many. In the past few years, knowledge of the brain has grown significantly. The documentary’s goal is to describe the complexity of the brain and how it influences various human behaviors, such as fear, sexual arousal, sports performance, and psychic mediums. With a minor shortcoming, the documentary does a sufficient job of introducing the complexity and workings of the brain to people with little knowledge of the topic.
The human body is divided into many different parts called organs. All of the parts are controlled by an organ called the brain, which is located in the head. The brain weighs about 2. 75 pounds, and has a whitish-pink appearance. The brain is made up of many cells, and is the control centre of the body. The brain flashes messages out to all the other parts of the body.
A number of different theories have been proposed to explain how these factors contribute to the development of this disorder. The first theory is experiential: people can learn their fear after an initial unpleasant experience such as a humiliating situation, physical or sexual abuse, or just attending a violent act. Similar experiences that follow add to the anxiety. According to another theory, which refers to cognition or thinking, people believe or predict that the outcome of a particular situation will be degrading or harmful to them. This can happen, for example, if parents are overly protective and constantly alert to potential problems. The third theory focuses on biological basics. Research suggests that the amygdala, a structure deep inside the brain, serves as a communication center that signals the presence of threats, and triggers a response in the form of fear or
All experiences change the brain, both good and bad. This is because the brain is designed to change in response to patterned, repetitive stimulation. The stimulation associated with fear and trauma changes the brain. Over the last twenty years, neuroscientists studying the brain have learned how fear and trauma influence the mature brain, and more recently, the developing brain. It is increasingly clear that experiences in childhood has relatively more impact on the developing child than experiences later in life. (Perry) The functional capabilities of the mature brain develop throughout life, but most of critical structural and functional development takes place in childhood. By shaping the developing brain, the experiences of childhood define the adult. Simply stated, children reflect the world in which they are raised. If that world is characterized by threat, chaos, unpredictability, fear and trauma, the brain will reflect that by altering the development of the neural systems involved in the stress and fear response. “The human brain is designed to sense, process, store, perceive, and act on information from the external and the internal environment. These complex systems and activities work together for one overall purpose – survival.”