Understanding the Functions of the Amygdala

886 Words2 Pages

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).

Amygdala activation and its role in attentional threat assessment
When considering the role of the amygdala in attentional threat assessment, recent research attempts to tackle certain questions: 1. Does amygdala activation depend on the focus of attention? 2. What is the relationship between amygdala activation and gaze orientation? 3. How is threat assessed when viewing emotional faces with ambiguous directions of gaze and concentrating on a corresponding emotiona...

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...& Buchel, C. (2009). Amygdala activation predicts gaze toward fearful eyes. The Journal of Neuroscience, 29(28), 9123-9126. http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1883-09.2009
Gamer, M., Schmitz, A. K., Tittgemeyer, M., & Schilbach, L. (2013). The human amygdala drives reflexive orienting towards facial features. Current Biology, 23(20), R917-R918. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.09.008
Gamer, M., Zurowski, B., & Buchel, C. (2010). Different amygdala subregions mediate valence-related and attentional effects of oxytocin in humans. PNAS, 107(20), 9400-9405. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1000985107
Lischke, A., Gamer, M., Berger, C., Grossmann, A., Hauenstein, K., Heinrichs, M., . . . Domes, G. (2012). Oxytocin increases amygdala reactivity to threatening scenes in females. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37(9), 1431-1438. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.01.011

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