Fear and the Amygdala

Journal article

Over the past 2-3 decades, a converging corpus has implicated the amygdala in assigning emotional significance to sensory information. In particular, data from animal and human studies have demonstrated that the amygdala is a key node in a network of brain regions underlying fear responses. Consistent with its role in fear processing, amygdala hyperarousal has been implicated in a number of disorders, including anxiety and depression. Neuroimaging studies in healthy volunteers suggest that drugs used in the treatment of these disorders have rapid and direct effects on the amygdala fear response, an effect that may be important in the therapeutic action of antidepressants in depression and anxiety. © 2007 Copyright © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Authors: Norbury, R; Goodwin, G

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Pages: 19-24
• Publication date: 2010-01-01
• DOI: 10.1016/B978-012373947-6.00489-X
• Language: English