Amygdala Case Study

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Situated within the temporal lobe, the amygdala is a collection of nucli which are considered to be part of the brain's limbic system. It is believed to be critically involved in emotional behavior and important for the detection and response to threats (L. Pessoa, R. Adolphs, 2010). Promoting a fast and efficient response to a threat through a cortical "alarm system" (Liddell et al., 2005)

Research has shown that amygadala lesions can effect the recognition of fearful facial expressions. Adolphs et al. (1994) found this in his patient, refered to as S.M. During childhood S.M. suffered from a rare genetic condition which resuted in complete bilateral amygdala distruction, with little involvment of any other surrounding structures. She was presented with photographs of faces to which she appeared to have a decreased ability to recognise certain emotions in, prodominantly fearful facial expressions. Later studies conducted with S.M. (Justin S. Feinstein, Ralph Adolphs, Antonio Damasio, 2011) exposed her to fear evoking situations, for example taking her on a tour of a haunted …show more content…
The results found that she didn't outwardly exhibit fear during these situations, she reported feeling nothing more than "minimal levels of fear". Through self questionaires over a period of 3 months, "SM repeatedly demonstrated an absence of overt fear manifestations and an overall impoverished experience of fear" despite her . These abnormal fear responses have also been seen in monkeys (for example,

The Amygdala Case Study

event of a positive or negative situation and what decisions are essential for the business to thrive. Human beings have their own room filled with this much information – in the brain. This particular section of the brain is called the amygdala. The name amygdala originates from the Greek word ‘amygdalē' meaning almond, which is suiting because according to the University of Idaho College…

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to certain attributes, instead it is a combination of genes and the environment. Dr. Sapolsky justifies his research by telling how we are affected by things that happened millions of years ago in our history, which in turn directly affects our amygdala, that is the part of the cerebral hemisphere involved with emotions. Even though some consider our behaviors to be made up of a series of life altering situations, it is actually genes, the…

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Flaws In The Criminal Justice System

There is a common saying that actions speak louder than words. Yet, the root of many people’s actions seems to be unknown. While it makes sense that a person’s actions are determined by their cognitive consciousness, that is not always the case with biology. Sometimes, people are affected by things they cannot control. They could have brain abnormalities that could change the way they think and the actions they take. The simple difference between the size and shape of their frontal lobes could ignite…

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Anxiety Disorder Analysis

These are just the cases that sought treatment, so these statistics discount people that are diagnosed but forgo treatment, as well as those suffering without a diagnosis. The National Institute of Mental Health determined 28.8% of adults suffer from an anxiety disorder over…

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One such example is directed attention, which, in the case of rumination, directs attention to the negative feelings and consequences related to the stressor (Gross, 1998). One study has shown that people who tend to ruminate a lot show greater amygdala modulation during reappraisal than do nonruminators (Ochsner & Gross, 2008). Similar to rumination and magnification is ‘focusing on the venting of emotions’…

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II at the hand of another person. (Fox and Delateur, 2008). This information contained numbers for the whole world but the thought of so many people perishing from the acts of violence by another human being should give anyone great concern. Many studies also showed a correlation however of traits in common of those individuals committing such acts of violence leading to death. Traits According to statistics, Caucasian adult males make up over 90% of sudden mass murders in the United States and…

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Essay on Discuss the Interaction Between Cognition and Physiology in Terms of Behavior

Studies using neuro-imaging have concluded that emotional memory relates to the amygdala in the brain, and procedural locates at the striatum and cerebellum. Moving on to a specific study, one was done on a man known as HM. At the age of 9, HM started having uncontrollable epileptic seizures that couldn't be controlled by medication at the time…

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Changes in major brain structures of people affected by PTSD have been shown by neuroanatomical studies. In general, trauma causes significant physical changes to the amygdala and hippocampus, affecting memory and emotions. Linguistic function is also disrupted because of the effects PTSD has on the prefrontal lobe., which causes confusion and difficulty expressing thoughts and feelings…

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6PS002 Assesment 1 Presentation Essay

According to Swettenham et al, (1998) early signs of a person having autism include a failure to maintain eye-to-eye contact with other people.  In a study carried out by Rutter (1979) and again by Rapin (1997) it was found that up to 75% of cases of people who have autism also suffer from mental retardation.  It has also been found in a study carried out by Venter et al (1992) that whereas performance on some cognitive tasks is low performance on other tasks can be high .Some autistic people…

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The Emotional Brain by Laura Arendal Essay

perceive as dangerous (for instance, a snake slithering toward you) and survive the event. So how does it work? Primary Emotion: Introducing Fear Evolution has graced us with the amygdala, an almond-shaped component of the ancient basal ganglia that is involved with aspects of emotion and memory formation. The amygdala allows an instantaneous, unthinking reaction in the face of a threat; sort of a survivomatic autopilot. As Joseph LeDoux says, "When it comes to detecting and responding to danger…

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