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Amygdala Research Paper

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The amygdala, the seat of emotion and motivation, is a fascinating telencephalic component of our limbic system located in the anterior temporal lobe. Scientific advancements in the field of neuroscience have revealed that this almond shaped wonder is a versatile emotional genius contributing to various facets of cognition. The term amygdala, first mentioned by the German physician and anatomist Karl Friedrich Burdach (1819), is composed of lateral, basal and accessory basal nuclei, collectively termed as the basolateral amygdala. Though the surrounding central, medial and cortical nuclei, are often included in the 'amygdala complex', it is the basolateral amygdala that accepts the sensory input from thalamus (sensory relay station), hippocampus …show more content…

The components of the amygdala vital for fear conditioning are lateral nucleus, basal nucleus, intercalated cells and central nucleus. The amygdala is suggested to be essential in recognition of fear in facial expressions as well as multiple emotions in a single facial expression so that any lesion of the amygdala can result in selective deficits in the recognition of fearful facial expressions. The lateral and basal nuclei of the amygdala are believed to be the location of memory storage in fear learning. For fear related memories, new protein synthesis in the amygdala is required for reconsolidation after retrieval and disruption of reconsolidation erases a fear memory trace in human amygdala, thus supporting the fact that the amygdala plays an important role in an evolutionarily conserved memory-update mechanism. The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway is thought to play a crucial role in fear conditioning and synaptic plasticity in the amygdala. The NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate)-dependent calcium influx in the lateral amygdala leads to the activation of protein kinases and associated transcription factors during memory formation. Neuroimaging studies suggest involvement of a subcortical pathway, via midbrain and thalamus, to the right amygdala in mediating “unseen” visual events of fear. Studies also have found that the amygdala responds not only to fearful facial manifestation, but also to fearful stimuli and events such as accidents, explosions, mutilations,

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The human brain is made of thousands of things we have no clue about, but when it comes to anxiety, he explains that the amygdala in our brain causes most of the problems. He tells us that the amygdala, “connects the two events, forming an unconscious memory of the association.” This is the reason why we recall a moment of fear and feel it again in a similar situation. To give us a better picture of what he is trying to tell us, LeDoux illustrates for us an example that doesn’t contain fear to show us how our mind can connect things together. He summarizes Pavlov’s famous experiment and tell us that, “When the bell rang the dog salivated because the bell had previously been rung as the dog was being fed. ”

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PTSD is formed through memory schema based on a cognitive behavioral view (Hyde & Quest, 2012, page 285). She couldn’t remember the attack Jane Doe started questioning her

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It is true that fear will at first, consume people’s mind. But

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1. You always try to impress other people. You seek other people 's approval of your choices and actions. 2. You talk too much and loudly.

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One of the most complex aspects of being human relates to the state of consciousness. It offers perhaps the most varied of experiences, from the state in which people are in when they are not conscious to the representation of semi-consciousness to the full reality of the waken state. Cognitive neuroscience may be one of the most well-explored areas of human well-being, and yet there is still so much more to learn about the inner workings of arguably the most important organ in the body. Chapter 3 delves into the concept of consciousness and the two-track mind, in an attempt to explain everything from sleep issues to addiction to the hypnosis to the ways in which the brain processes just about everything. The brain is a highly complex organ that is responsible for everything from knowledge to personality and everything in between.

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Summary: Chapter 2 Chapter two dives into the concept of learning. As mentioned in the previous chapter, learning is the study of changes in behavior produced by experience, so when studying learning it is vital to examine how events in the environment change an individual’s behavior. Many scientists consider learning to be a natural phenomenon, they make their case based on four assumptions. The first assumption being that natural phenomena’s do not just happen, but instead they are caused as the result of some other event. The second assumption is that causes precede effects.

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Patients with generalized anxiety disorder are found to have unrealistic view of danger. Many of them fear being in pain, harmed and have repeated thoughts of death, suffering in pain, being in danger and getting damaged mentally and physically in anyway. Psychodynamic ? Caused from our psychological alerting mechanism that arises when patient 's unconscious motivations clash with the conscious mind of the patient. Environmental ?

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Fear is perhaps the strongest force within humans- something that is an undeniable influence on our decision making process, whether those decisions may be major or minor. Fear comes into play both consciously and subconsciously; both practically and non practically; it is not always 100% apparent but it is the drive behind so much more of our thought process than we actually realize. This is not only human nature but the nature of animals, too. It is a force we cannot escape, whether is comes in reflexes or is something we avidly dwell on, so we’ve instead explored and embraced the wonders of this thing called fear.

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The amygdala is usually activated in states of fear, since John Gacy killed over 30 men and did not experience any rueful feelings,except for joy and

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In order to produce valid results, participants performed three different tasks of an alternative version of DRM paradigm, a memory-recall test that was designed especially for this study and then they completed the generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire, the Zung self-rate questionnaire and the state-trait anxiety inventory. Results demonstrated that there was no significant correlation between the different tasks of the recall test and the different mood states. That means that many participants did not exhibit that their mood state influenced their performance in any of the tasks. It might be expected in accordance with existing literature, that emotional task would cause more false memories or would enhance recall due to emotional arousal. The latter, the emotional arousal effect is also supported by Corson’s (2006) study referred above.

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Instead stress or other psychological factors trigger the amnesia (McKay & Kopelman, 2009). The characteristics include retrograde amnesia (RA): the inability to remember memories previously made. This tends to affect the few years before the onset of amnesia and spares more distant memories (Reed & Squire 1998). Another symptom is slight anterograde amnesia (AA): the inability to form new memories. AA is a minor impairment within PA (Kritchevsky, Chang & Squire, 2004).

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In contrast, testosterone didn’t have the same influence if they were observing other emotions. The study fortifies the amygdala’s role in social threat perception as well as the hypothalamus’ responsibility in the release of adrenaline during a fight or flight response. Moreover, it shows how the amygdala isn’t solely involved in the perception of a threat, but also motivation to deal with it. The study doesn’t give a clear view on how this activation of the amygdala leads to acting in a violent way, however, it indicates that testosterone would cause aggressive behavioural changes because the body is preparing for

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The level of dopamine increases when we think of a chocolate cake or a kebab, but this does not mean that such brain adaptation is good for the person’s

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The research study focused on suppression of visual memories. Researchers first believed that majority of trauma had a visual aspect (University of Cambridge, 2014). That most people who have some type of traumatic experiences like military war or some detrimental close encounter visualizes traumatic experience. That these fortunate circumstances had been imbedded in their psyche and with something so traumatic they will never forget the

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Acute stress or single exposure to stressor of minutes to hours will be not produce any ill effect as body have protective and adaptive effects managed by hormones and other physiological agents. However re-exposure has proven to be more enigmatic or difficult to reverse. Conrad et al (1999) stated that severe or prolonged exposure to stressors is harmful, brief or moderate stressors actually enhance neural function. Various behavioral studies focusing on the memory functions of the hippocampus have demonstrated that moderate stress enhances memory performance but severe stress causes adaptive plasticity and impairs memory. Prolonged stress produces interaction between local neurotransmitters and hormones leading to structural and functional damage causing suppression of neurogenesis.

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