The posterior orbitofrontal cortex, anterior temporal sensory association areas and the amygdala have a key role in emotional processing and are robustly interconnected. By analogy with the pattern of connections in early processing sensory areas, anterior temporal sensory and polymodal association cortices send primarily feedforward projections to posterior orbitofrontal cortex and to the amyg...

The amygdala plays a central role in fear conditioning, emotional processing, and memory modulation. A postulated key component of the neurochemical regulation of amygdala function is the neurotransmitter 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), and synaptic levels of 5-HT in the amygdala and elsewhere are critically regulated by the 5-HT transporter (5-HTT). The aim of this study was to directly examine th...

The autonomic nervous system, especially the sympathetic nervous system, regulates immune responses, while cytokines produced in the immune system also affect neuronal activities. Stress-induced expression of immediate early genes, such as c-Fos in the brain, and the viral transneuronal labeling using pseudorabies virus make it possible to analyze the neurocircuitry of the stress-related centra...

Introduction: Learning and memory processes result from interaction of neurotransmitter systems in various brain regions such as amygdala and hippocampus. Considering that morphine induces memory impairment, in the current study, we examined the possible role of cholinergic muscarinic receptors of the central amygdala (CeA) on the morphine-induced amnesia in adult male Wistar rats. Methods...

The goal of this work was to test the involvement of the central nucleus and basolateral complex of the amygdala in fear conditioning, using auditory and visual conditioned stimuli (CSs). The acoustic startle reflex in rats was used as the behavioral index of conditioning because startle is reliably enhanced in the presence of a conditioned stimulus (CS) previously paired with a footshock. Init...

Background Drug memories become labile and reconsolidated after retrieval by presentation of environmental cues (conditioned stimulus) or drugs (unconditioned stimulus). Whether conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus retrieval trigger different memory reconsolidation processes is not clear. Methods Protein synthesis inhibitor or β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) antagonist was systemicall...

The evidence for amygdala processing of emotional items outside the focus of attention is mixed. We hypothesized that differences in attentional demands may, at least in part, explain prior discrepancies. In the present study, attention was manipulated by parametrically varying the difficulty of a central task, allowing us to compare responses evoked by unattended emotion-laden faces while the ...

AA amygdala, anterior nucleus AAF anterior auditory field ABm basomedial nucleus of the amygdala ACe central nucleus of the amygdala AD anterior part of the DCN AES anterior ectosylvian area aes anterior ectosylvian sulcus AI primary auditory cortex AlP anterolateral periolivary nucleus APt anterior pretectum AII second auditory cortex AM anterior medial nucleus AV anterior ventral thalamic nuc...

We examined the effects of discrete, bilateral excitotoxic lesions of the central or basolateral nucleus of the amygdala on naloxone-precipitated withdrawal-induced conditioned place aversion in morphine-dependent rats. Lesions of the central nucleus significantly attenuated the conditioned place aversion, while lesions of the basolateral nucleus had little effect. These results suggest that th...

Oxytocin produces anxiolytic effects via the central nucleus of the amygdala but how the peptide reaches its receptors in this region has been unclear. In this issue of Neuron, Knobloch et al. (2012) demonstrate that evoked oxytocin release from axon terminals within the central amygdala results in attenuation of fear.