intermediateanatomyemotionfear
Amygdala
Fear processing, emotional memory, and threat detection.
© Blausen Medical Communications · CC-BY
The amygdala is an almond-shaped cluster of nuclei in the temporal lobe central to emotional processing. LeDoux's work mapped fear conditioning circuits through the amygdala. It evaluates threat, encodes emotional memories, and modulates attention to emotionally salient stimuli. Hyperactivity is implicated in anxiety disorders and PTSD; damage can impair fear recognition while preserving cognitive fear knowledge.
Functions
Fear processingEmotional memoryThreat detectionSocial cognition
Related Disorders
Gallery
Amygdala region MRI
Limbic system
Brain
Videos
Related in NeuroSphere
emotionfearlimbic systemptsdanxiety
Sources & Attribution