amygdala
Acronym:
AMG
The term amygdala refers to a histologically defined structure at the rostral extreme of the ventral limb of the limbic lobe (LLBv), which has a cortical component on the medial aspect of the anterior parahippocampal gyrus (PHGa) of the human and macaque ( Amaral-1992 ) and in the rat ( Swanson-2004 ) and mouse ( Hof-2000 ) where it is located ventromedially in the cerebral hemisphere about midway between the frontal pole (frp) and occipital pole. It has two parts: periamygdalar cortex (PAC) and amygdalar nuclei (AMN).
The PAC is more cortex-like in that the neurons are organized in layers; it connects the olfactory system (OLS) via stria terminalis (st) to the nuclei of stria terminalis (NST) and hypothalamus (HYP) ( Olmos-1990 ). In the AMN neurons and myelinated axons are more homogeneously distributed. They receive input from the olfactory system through PAC and directly from all of the other sensory systems ( Wright-1997 ).
Two major functions of the amygdala are to mediate fast stereotypic instinctive responses to natural stimuli and to mediate the performance of learned responses to stimuli signalling opportunity to seek reward or to avoid harm ( Bowden-2021 ). The other is to enable performance of those functions subconsciously, i.e., without awareness of the stimulus . The amygdala can recognize and mediate subconscious behavioral responses to positive and negative, natural and symbolic, meaningful (syn: provocative, affective, emotional) stimuli ( Weiskrantz, 2004).
Also known as: amygdaloid body, amygdaloid complex, amygdaloid nuclear complex, amygdaloid nucleus, archistriatum, Corpus amygdalae, Corpus amygdaloideum, nucleus amygdalaeNeuroNames ID : 237
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